Psa that your witchcraft is tailor made to you. You can obviously adopt practices from others that you like, but your craft is your own. It can be as messy or as organized as you need/want. It can be inconsistent as fuck, or scheduled. Never feel bad for the way you practice. Witchcraft is meant to be tailored to each individual
dear chicken, if its not too much trouble, could i ask for your advice on a situation that's troubling me a lot as of late? my spiritual practice has been suffering due to my being torn between so many different interests and areas of hyperfocus, and i'm unsure how to reconcile all the different things that i'm drawn to but are so culturally different. for example, i'm in love with traditional english folk magic/witchcraft, and have done a lot of research on the regional folklore of places my ancestors are from. at the same time, however, i'm also in love with orphism, and feel no greater contentment and purpose than when i dream about devoting myself to the greek gods. to say nothing about historical/cultural differences and potential disrespect (ancient greece having very different ideas on what constituted "witchcraft" and whether or not it was hubris, for example) i'm just not sure how to even go about reconciling how these would work together as part of a practice. genuinely, i feel distressed, stuck, and as if i am simultaneously letting down my ancestors /and/ those who historical practices i have put on a pedestal.
Hi, Anon.
Do you think it's possible that you might have very unrealistic standards for what it actually means to practice your faith?
Because, please forgive me if I'm wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you might be making up a ton of rules for yourself.
Have your ancestors visited you and told you they would be disappointed in you if you practiced anything other than English folk magic? If so, why do you hold their opinions to be higher than your happiness? If so, what steps have you taken to reconcile your relationship with your ancestor and reach a place of mutual understanding so they won't be upset with you for doing what makes you happy?
Approximately one billion modern witches practice witchcraft and intentionally include the Greek gods in their witchcraft, or, have a faith centered around the Greek gods and practice witchcraft on the side. A Greek goddess has personally helped me with my witchcraft even though I'm not even a pagan.
Is there anything that makes you feel that you in particular would disrespect the gods by doing this, even though other people do it and it improves their relationship with the gods?
(I also just now remembered Hekate, isn't she like, the highkey Greek goddess of witchcraft? Why wouldn't she want you to both venerate the Greek gods and practice witchcraft?)
If the gods have told you that you can't practice folk magic without disrespecting them, what steps have you taken to understand why they have this special rule for you that they do not have for other people? Have they told you that this is temporary, or permanent? When you've offered solutions, what did they say?
And if these assholes are all banding up on you telling you that you can't do what makes you happy and weaponizing their disappointment to make you fall in line, why do you want to work with any of them at all? You deserve better.
But, Anon, I secretly suspect that none of that has happened. I suspect that you might have just made up a lot of rules for yourself and decided everyone will be mad at you unless you dedicate yourself to 1 thing and do it 100% perfectly.
I'm not saying that sometimes ancestors don't bully people into following a certain path, or that gods ask for very special levels of devotion once your relationship gets to a certain point. But I'm also not suspecting that this is the case for you.
It's just that, I dunno. To me it sounds like you're acting like any particular path you take is like locking yourself inside of a monastery to the exclusion of all else, like instead of starting out chill, you're wanting to start out as a devotee initiate ready to take lifelong vows.
Instead of just like, praying to Hermes to help with traffic and then later that week giving your ancestors a meal.
You're saying you don't know how this would look in practice, which makes me worry that you're trying to write a textbook about how to do your practice without ever actually having learned the material.
You can never know what it looks like before you do it.
You are not supposed to able to envision a complete, polished pathway before you put your hiking boots on.
You don't even need to be able to see around the first corner.
Toad charm to cure a cold, veil to limit Miasma. Pray to the ancestors, then to Zeus. I don't see the conflict. And if Apollo gets mad at you for doing your ancestral coffee grind readings because it isn't Greek enough for him, sort that out when it happens.
But wait until it happens before you worry about it.
This ask captures something that I see with tumblr beginners specifically. At some point discourse spread that it was wrong to practice in an eclectic manner because you run too much risk of appropriation, and this was amplified by tumblr's desire to create types like "green witch" and "water witch" etc. If you're largely involved with the tumblr witch community, there is the impression that users tend to follow one specific path.
But, I think that's more a function of helping to identify what you like and are interested and knowledgeable in, not a strict identification.
How can spirituality promote hate? That goes against everything spirituality is...
Anon, I'm afraid you've fallen for the No True Scotsman Fallacy. It's just a basic fact of life that some forms of spirituality promote and even enshrine certain forms of hate. Spirituality is not intrinsically good or loving, and being hateful does not mean someone is less sincere in their spiritual beliefs.
If you want to learn what spirituality really is, spend less time listening to its PR agents and more time observing how it's actually performed and what it actually accomplishes in practice.
Hi, beginner witch here!
I came across your trance veil post and I was wondering, what are they used for?
I haven't commonly seen "trance veils" so I am not sure that they are really a thing. But, partially blocking your vision (and being in a dark space), can facilitate both entering a trance state and receiving visions.
So, this is a bit like a horse blinder which helps a practitioner return their focus to the spirit world for ease of communion, to receive visions, and to engage in other aspects of trance.
If you are new to trance in general, a good search term is altered states of consciousness or ASC. This is a science thing that relates to brainwaves and states of consciousness, so try seeking out scientific sources instead of magical ones.
For the purposes of the magician, trance can be achieved in many ways and is a skill that can be learned through practice.
I'm sorry if this is a silly question, but what constitutes doing witchcraft? I often hear that "you're a witch if you practice witchcraft", but is there any general definition for what witchcraft looks like? Like, if something feels like witchcraft to you, is it? Or does it have to fit a set of basic criteria? Sorry again if this is a silly question.
Nah, it's not a silly question!
So the thing about "witchcraft" is that there's no set definition of the term or comprehension of what it is. There are individual people who have very rigid ideas of what is and isn't witchcraft, of course, but (as much as they might wish they did) these people don't speak for everyone.
I wrote a longer post on what witchcraft is (or might be) over here - I think this might answer your question.
Don’t you go hiding this in the tags:
Oh, it all comes from somewhere, all right, but the where isn't what most people imagine.
A lot of the stuff above is just a modern spin on the content of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews. The Protocols itself was plagiarized from a political satire and incorporated a lot of the post-French Revolution conspiracy theories about Freemasons and Jews being behind the French Revolution. I wrote a summary of the conspiracy tropes found in The Protocols over here.
The stuff about Satanic sacrifices and the consumption of blood, adrenochrome, loosh, or whatever are simply just variations on blood libel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews practice ritual cannibalism. Blood libel can be traced back to ancient Greece. (With the Greek version, I really can't help but notice the similarity to modern urban legends of gangsters kidnapping random people for initiation rituals.)
Many of these tropes can also be linked back to the early modern witch hunts. It was believed that witches sacrificed babies to Satan, practiced cannibalism, and put people under mind control by way of diabolical magic. It was also believed that some witches didn't even know they were witches; they'd go off to attend the Devil's Sabbath at night and come back in the morning without remembering a thing. In the late 20th century, this witch hunter's canard would be reinvented as the alter programming conspiracy theory when media such as the 1973 book Sibyl and its 1976 television adaptation put DID (note: the woman who inspired Sibyl did not have DID) into the public consciousness. For a more complete list of witch panic and blood libel tropes, I wrote a list over here.
Lemuria was a hypothetical landmass proposed to explain the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India while being absent in continental Africa and the rest of Asia, because if lemurs evolved naturally, they wouldn't be in two separate places with no connection to each other. The discovery that India and Madagascar were once connected not only made the hypothesis obsolete, it precludes the existence of Lemuria.
The whole notion of Mu began with a horrendous mistranslation of the Troano manuscript. A man named Augustus Le Plongeon would link the mistranslation with the story of Atlantis, and use it to claim that Atlantis actually existed in the Americas. (For Plongeon, Mu and Atlantis were one and the same.) And then other people (like James Churchward) got their hands on the whole Mu thing, and put their own spins on it, and the rest is history.
Le Plongeon's ideas influence modern Atlantis mythology today; EG, the idea that it was in the Americas. Another guy who helped shape the modern Atlantis myth was Ignatius L. Donnelly, an American politician. Dude claimed that Atlanteans spread their oh-so-superior culture far and wide. He also claimed that Atlantis was the home of the Aryan people, because of course he did.
The idea that all of the world's wisdom can be traced back to Thoth/Hermes goes back to Hermeticism, a product of Greco-Egyptian syncretism. Hermeticism produced a fascinating body of mythology and an interesting way to consider the divine and its role in shaping human history, but that doesn't mean it was right. And the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is a modern text that has fuck-all to do with ancient Hermeticism and more to do with HP Lovecraft.
This idea that the conspiracy uses pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines for evil also has roots in Nazi Germany. The Nazi government, wanting to reserve real medicine for their soldiers, told the general populace that said medicine was the product of evil Jewish science and prescribed alternative healing modalities instead. (Said alternative healing modalities did not particularly work.) It also echoes the old conspiracy theories about Jews spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells.
The idea that the conspiracy uses genetic manipulation to create subhuman beings or sever humanity from the divine is a permutation of the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to destroy the white race through race mixing. The idea of evil reptilian DNA goes back to the ancient serpent seed doctrine, which is indeed old, but no less pure hateful nonsense for it.
Oh sure. But these people aren't skulking around in the shadows. They're acting pretty openly.
The Heritage Foundation has been working to push this country into Christofascism since the early 1970's. They're the ones responsible for the rise of the Moral Majority and the election of Ronald Reagan. They're also the ones behind Project 2025, which intends to bring us deeper into Christofascism. (Among many other horrible things, they intend to outlaw trans people as "pornographic.")
The Seven Mountains Mandate is another movement pushing for Christofascism. They intend to seize the "seven spheres" of society, which include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media.
There's also the ghoulish American Evangelicals who support Israel because they think that current events are going to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus and cement the formation of a global Christofascist empire. Don't let their apparent support of Jews fool you - they believe that the good Jews will become Christians and the bad ones will go to hell.
All of these people are working toward monstrously horrific goals, but none of them are part of an ancient megaconspiracy. In fact, these are the kinds of people pushing the myth of the ancient megaconspiracy. From the witch hunts to Nazi Germany to the American Evangelical movement, if history has taught us anything, the people pushing the conspiracy theories are always the bad guys.
There are lots of ways to create spells, from planning everything to the minutest detail ahead of time to absolutely flying by the seat of your pants in the moment. If you'd like to write your own spells, either for use in your craft or as a creative exercise, here are some suggested steps that I use in my own practice:
1) Determine the intent or goal of your spell. Decide, first and foremost, what you want the spell to do. Refine your goal if necessary and try not to be too nebulous. Your intent tells the spell what it's meant to do. A more focused goal may increase the chances of success.
2) Determine how you want the spell to manifest. Decide how the spell should work and what the result should look like. This is a good time to build in a sign of success, especially for spells that may not work in an obvious or visible way.
3) Determine what or whom the spell will affect. If the spell is to have a target, be it a person or a place or an animal or an object, decide what that should be and how they or it will be represented in the casting.
4) Determine how long the spell is meant to work. If your spell is timebound or has a deadline, decide what that will be. If the spell is meant to work long-term, you may want to check in and refresh it from time to time. (Not every spell will be timebound. Many spells will simply expire when they have fulfilled their purpose or if they are blocked or circumstances are not favorable.)
5) Determine the timing of the spell, if applicable. Not everyone uses celestial or astrological timing for their spells, but if you do, look into the prevailing conditions and decide on an advantageous time for your casting. (Please note that magical timing can only enhance your spell and casting something on the "wrong" day will not necessarily cause it to fail.)
6) Determine what methods and materials you want to use to cast the spell. Decide how you're going to go about performing the casting, whether you're doing a ritual or making a charm or just using energy. If you're going to need a ritual space or physical components, plan that out and make sure it fits with what you want to do.
7) Determine the words, if any, which will empower the spell. If you want to include a prayer or a petition or a song or an incantation with your spell, decide what that should be. This is not strictly necessary and the words need not be spoken aloud. (Rhyming incantations are not required, but if you prefer them that way, you can certainly do so.)
8) Prepare the materials for casting the spell. Get all your necessaries together ahead of time. Make sure you have everything you need, that tools and components are in good and useable condition, prepare your workspace, and make sure everything is within easy reach so you don't have to stop and search for things in the middle of your casting. (And for goodness sake, if you're working with open flame, observe fire safety and tie your hair and sleeves back.)
9) Finalize details and perform the casting. When you're ready to begin, try to eliminate as many possibilities for distraction or interruption as possible. Go over your spell and components one more time, then proceed with casting the spell.
10) Record the particulars for future reference and to determine how well the spell worked. Make a record of the spell, including your goal, how it should manifest, the words and components used, the date of the casting, the casting method and procedure, and how the casting went. If there are any additional details or observations that seem important, include those as well. This will serve as a useful learning tool in the future and will allow you to check your work if the results make themselves known.
It's useful to write spells from time to time if the inspiration strikes you, in order to better understand how they fit together and how they work. Plus it's a fun and creative journaling exercise and recording the spells you cast a great way to measure your progress later on.
For additional tips on writing your own spells and helpful tricks for using timing and available materials to your advantage, check out my podcast, Hex Positive, Eps. 006-007, "Come In For A Spell, pt 1 & 2."
(And if you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)
This is by no means a complete list, but here is a rough couple of examples and methods for figuring out what's legit and what's a scam! TW: Mentions of death, blood, and threats below. Today I’ll be going over key things to look for, things to avoid, and how to deduct if someone’s services are legitimate! Unfortunately scams are everywhere and that includes within the Witchcraft community. There’s quite a few different scams floating around out there, below I’m going to list some of them and then list different things to notice and be skeptical about. The most common scam is readings via DM/PM on instagram, tumblr, social medias like that. They’ll contact you via DM/PM and claim their ancestors, guides, intuition, etc, etc called them to contact you for a reading. The reading itself might be free...but the information they nd will not be. They’ll claim you have something attached to you, a curse, evil spirit, tar spirit, demon, Djinn, family curse, a curse from an ex, etc, etc. And that you’ll need to pay them in order for them to get rid of it for you. In short: They seduce you into conversations by promising something free, and then pressure and scare you into paying them to ‘make this bad thing’ go away. If this ever happens just block and report them and move on. ALSO: If you do want a reading from a reader you follow...make sure it’s not a copied account! Big follower base instagram accounts get copies made of them all the time, do your research before reaching out! How can you tell a reader/practioner is fake? Just one of these warning signs doesn’t mean it’s fake, use intuition. Does the reader/practioner have any sort of personal information on their page? Where are they from? Are there photos of themselves and not stock-image photos? Did you find the practitioner through a youtube comment? Did the comment seem...super copy and pasted? Like so? What sort of reviews do they have elsewhere? MASSIVE RED FLAG. These are comments leading to what we like to call the ‘African Priest’ scammer. More info on them below! When you talk to them...do they ignore your comments or questions about them? Do they seem a little...botlike? Below is an example of a scam-bait youtube comment found on a witchy influencer's video.
SPELL SCAMS: Below is a screenshot of some obvious spell scams available on Etsy right now.
How much is the spell? If it’s an ungodly amount, like above...it will likely be a scam. What does talking to the spellcaster sound like? Are they applying pressure or stating that they need more ingredients than what you already paid for? Also a scam. Have they asked you for personal information? A full name/date of birth/photograph/mother’s maiden name/etc, etc? This is an identity fraud, they will likely sell it to the highest bidder or use it to apply for things. Please remember to be safe and keep personal information...personal. If the spellcaster insists that you don’t talk about the spell, don’t go to anyone else, or that if you back out they’ll send their ‘spirits’ or ‘demons’ after you or even harm you spiritually? Cleanse and GTFO. Block them with every method available, and don’t worry or fret. It’s a classic scam tactic, and you can see it within other groups of people as well.
The African ‘Priest’ Scammer:
The person will make very outrageous claims for what their magic can do. Sometimes they’ll go to the extremes of faith-healing...get you out of a wheelchair, or they’ve brought the dead to life. Most of the time they tend to say they’ll get your ex to be obsessed with you, make you into a millionaire, get you that dream job or funds with no effort, etc. Usually the African Priest scammer will claim to use Voodoo or some ‘ancient practice’, but yet have no knowledge on the practice if actually asked about it.
They’ll then state the cost of the spell, usually a couple hundred dollars, and that they’ll need to buy specific ingredients from particular African countries, send you pictures that are easily traceable of a hut with bones in the ceiling or something vaguely aesthetic like that, and claim this is their workspace.
The usage of over-familiarity, love, dear, precious, is also common instead of using your name. Then they’ll give you specic instructions, sometimes it’s payment via gift cards, or it’s ‘avoid driving for a week’ or other off the wall commentaries that don’t make sense in the grand scheme of things. Afterwards if you back out, they’ll claim they are sending spirits, Djinn, demons, or even whole deities after you for ‘breaking a pact’. This is a lie, and just a scare tactic. Again...just block and move on. No need to fret! Selling Entities/Changes to Your Person Scam:
This one’s a bit on the odder side, but stick with me! This is actually a pretty big scam right now. I am also not saying you can't buy a VESSEL that houses a spirit such as a porcelain doll, haunted object, etc, etc. This is a bit different you'll find.
Some people in some discord servers or communities will claim to sell you entities. The same groups may also claim they can change you from masc to fem, or visa versa, or give you an ego death. Below is some examples of one of these servers/offering up for sale:
Now that you’ve seen some examples, it shouldn’t take much for you to realize how scammy this seems. Not only is there stolen artwork being used...but frankly the descriptions of what will happen are...unbelievable at best. Some of these ads can even seem like they’re just selling you some sort of original character cooked up for a fantasy novel...you would be very correct on that last part. Do yourself a favor and just...don’t buy things you can’t tangibly touch or get proof of in some way, shape, or form, okay? Let me be abundantly clear: If witchcraft could change your gender in a snap, or heal all of your mental wounds, trust me, it wouldn’t be some long kept secret somewhere. Same goes for healing or even in some cases...turning you into a werewolf, vampire, demon, etc, etc. How to tell a legitimate spellcaster/reader:
The reader or spellcaster will be willing to go outside of DMs for readings or work. They’ll be willing to send photographs, videos, instagram stories, or meet with you via skype or zoom. The spellcaster will have distinct methodologies, and will likely explain what will happen step by step instead of being vague or just saying to ‘let the magic work’. A real worker will likely show you their labor for you. The prices seem reasonable. A few dollars or a few tens of dollars for a reading or work is quite reasonable. If they’re willing to work with you on prices is also a very good sign. Has the practitioner set boundaries or asked you questions about what you’re comfortable with? If you set boundaries are they willing to work with that? What is setting up an appointment with them like? Are they giving you options but making it clear they have books already? Is the practitioner or reader willing to talk with you one on one and make a personal connection? Do they seem reasonable? Now that we’ve gone over some things to look for and look OUT for, hopefully this will help you in the future if you start searching for practitioners to interact with and support. Don’t be afraid to ask others if something seems off or weird!
How do I get the power to command someone and the person obey?
How about make peace with the fact that other people have free will and autonomy, and work on developing better social skills?
I'm so...baffled by these kinds of questions, that I'm not even sure if I should take them seriously or not.
Like many people who practice magic also practice some form of guiding principles and ethics. This isn't some weird seventies horror movie, or fantasy book, where you stop by your local witch's house and ask her for some tincture or a bag of powder to make your wildest dreams come true.
Kinda reminds me of when I'm doing dream interpretations and I can tell someone really wants to be told that their dream is some kind of prophecy indicating that they're some kind of hero or savior.
I mean, I get it, I guess? you're talking to people who practice magic, but that doesn't mean we all live in a fantasy world, or that we're comfortable being actors in yours.
It's the being on anon and asking out of no where for me that makes it seem like a joke. Spend more than two seconds on these blogs and you'd see this isn't the kind of content these people post. So why ask other than as a joke?
Hey, remember when you could just find things relatable without pathologizing them?
Just my opinion, but I feel like it's actually good to be able to find common ground with your fellow humans without assuming it's because of a shared diagnosis.
Could I ask - what's the nastiest curse for an abuser you've got? My brother's ex was physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive throughout their relationship. The police were basically their third wheel. Now she's obsessed with me for having taken action and for continuing to publicly call her out, and for the better half of a year now since they broke up, she has continued to harass me, my brother, and my friends. In light of recent events, she's due for another curse.
I think a spell that would work best would be one to strip her of all her friends and support. She needs to sit alone and inside of herself for a bit. Find a single dead insect of some kind. Could be a fly, an ant, or something else, but it has to be alone. There can’t be another insect next to it. Put it in a container and take it back. Whisper the target’s name three times into the container with the insect. Gather basil, rosemary, and peppermint. Burn them. Leave nothing but the ashes. Then put the burnt remains in the container with the insect. Take a sewing needle and hold it for a moment over a flame, then plunge it through the insect. “There once was a bug lost from the swarm, drawn away from all things happy and warm.It found itself without companion or friend, save but one, its very own Sinto painfully walk with, and helplessly be haunteduntil the World’s Black End.” Cap the container and bury it deep in the ground.
there is a demon in your house named CARBON MONOXIDE. he enchants your mind with confusion and your body with exhaustion. you need to call a powerful exorcist named HVAC TECHNICIAN
I just listened to a Science Vs episode about the placebo effect and it was absolutely wild. The effects are so much more prominent than anything I previously understood that it makes me rethink my framework of witchcraft vs placebo when it comes to psychology and magic.
Would encourage anyone to listen to the episode because in general it's cool, but especially if you're the type of person who thinks the placebo effect is essentially someone believing they feel better, because what they found is there are actually measurable changes in body chemistry with placebo medications that go beyond someone's perception of how they're feeling.
Absolutely fascinating stuff.
A genuine attempt at reconnecting with any culture should involve a thorough look into its history - the events that shaped it, the context for its development and evolution.
It's that time of year again! The leaves are turning, the pumpkins are ripening, and with the increasing chill in the air comes a craving for chills of a different kind. If you're looking for some great audio horror this season, here are some podcasts you might enjoy. Check them out on your favorite podcast app!
(Please feel free to add your favorites in the notes!)
Fictional Frights
Real Life Is Terrifying
History & Folklore
Horror Movies
Classic Horror Tales
You can also visit Librivox for free public domain audiobooks, including MANY collections of classic scary stories, including a fantastic rendition of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
