Great Blues
haven't done enviro studies in like. a while.
drew this as fast as i possibly could. yay okay now you do it too
necromancy is literally fine
necromancy is literally fine
hey chicken! any good tips on cursing someone?
I got a few for ya' in the old grab bag of henpeckery.
Listed in no particular order.
- One is generally advised to not curse another magical practitioner, especially one who Knows What They're Doing. But if hands must be thrown, ensure you have more than a couple wards up to break malefica - and if this person is in your friend group, under no circumstances can you accept gifts or food from them (and destroy anything they have given you). Do, however, try to give them gifts and pre-cursed foods.
- Giving someone a cursed object or cursed food is an excellent way to get the job done. There's something very fairy-like in the way magic can work: by accepting the gift, they accept the curse, and it circumvents many natural defenses.
- Perhaps more than any other form of magic, it does to pre-divine on the matter to see what outcome will occur. I highly encourage this when the cursing is done as a form of self-defense, because sometimes some forms of malefic magic can be fuel on the fire of abusive situations. However, even a practitioner of slight power can cause serious harm with a curse - perhaps more damage than intended. It's really just best to measure twice, as it were.
- As with many spells, create for yourself a little indicator that the spell has worked. For example, wear one of those brittle hematite rings. If it breaks, the spell has become manifest. This is especially lovely if the person to be cursed is outside of your social circle and you don't have access to see if your manifestation worked.
- Cleverness is all well and good, as is poetic justice. A witch does well to keep in mind, however, that their natural strengths may neither be clever nor poetic, and sometimes you've got to just make due with the tools you have in your toolbox.
- When casting spells on yourself or your household, targeting isn't much of an issue. You're right there, the magic is right there, and voila. However, when working on a third party - especially one that doesn't live with you - targeting becomes relevant. If gifting an object or food to your target won't work, consider doing what you can to bring your curse into their presence by whatever physical means are safe and possible. If you can't do this, see if you can obtain something of theirs to work over by use of a poppet or some other sympathetic magic. If none of this is possible, try to make a thoughtform or employ a spirit to deliver your spell (or attack them outright), but this will be hard unless you know where they live. In other words: your spell has to get to them somehow. Figuring out how to make it happen is half the job.
- Depending on how the magic is worked, it is beneficent to cleanse both yourself and your casting area after the work is done. If a spell must be kept ongoing and close at hand, cover it with a black cloth (or t-shirt, or whatever) and keep it out of view to avoid having your own space polluted with unwanted energies.
- If you need a specific outcome for your own wellbeing, consider employing as many spells as you require to obtain that outcome. E.g. one for binding a tongue, another for getting that person fired, another to calm gossip in the workplace, and so on.
- Pay extremely little mind to people with moral admonitions, but keep their scoldings filed away. In a few months or years, in moments of reflection, ask yourself whether or not they were right.
- If for no other spell, this time, write down precisely what you do. If for no other reason than to cackle maniacally as you see exactly how each little ingredient of your spell plays out in their lives.
hi chicken, i think the idea of setting an indicator of the spell working is cool. do you maybe have anymore thoughts on that or how to actually do it? i like the idea im just not sure how to actually like.. set that intention and make sure it actually indicates
Easy as pie. You want something that has a chance to spontaneously change its physical state, but not a guarantee; a thread tied around your wrist that could snag and snap, or fall off; a brittle hematite ring that can shatter; in the past I've used something precariously stood up (a medical creme tube stood upright on its small cap) and set it in a sheltered place, the indication being whether or not it fell over on its own. (It did, in the middle of the night, and spooked me)
Place it with the other parts of the spell. Bake it into the same pie, as it were.
Candle be thou a candle likened to Money Marge herself, cash me out, stuff my hair with dollar dollar bills; And you, green thread, you are the oracle that sees; you are the chain that falls when the link is broken; you are the canary in the coal mine that falls away to sound the alert. You, my far-seeing helper, keep your eyes affixed upon Money Marge: and when [the last traces of power fade away/ when my spell has found its target/ if the spell fails before it can manifest] then you will show me it has happened by breaking, or snapping, or unraveling, or in any manner whatsoever falling away from my wrist.
- Ensure you have thoughtfully chosen an indicator that could happen randomly, yet is not guaranteed or likely to happen (an indicator with a 50/50 chance of 'going off' anyways is not useful)
- Through ritual action, words, or by any means, link and involve the indicating object to the spell; consecrate them together, energize them together, soak them in the same bath of energies
- Clearly define what role the indicating object is playing. Poetry serves well, in my opinion. Also see if you can't get the poetry to match the action and theme (falling away thread = chain that snaps, canary that falls -- indicator for a ward being breached, "you are the war horn that sounds the alarm")
- Clearly define the conditions under which the object will perform that indicated action ("when Money Marge has grabbed money for me and is rushing back to my side.")
- From that point onwards such indicator objects may be considered to be a taglock of the spell, and a useful connection to be able to 'check in'. Very handy little things for practicing psychism and energy reading.
- It's reasonable to assume that you are functionally enchanting an entire second object, and therefore this might be significantly more draining than one might expect at first glance. My recommendation is to ensure the primary function of the spell gets all it needs first, and any indicator object comes second; also, there's perhaps no need to go ham on the indicator at all.
Hey if you identify as a baby witch I want you to know how often people literally just make up correspondences and post them without labeling it as UPG. Watch I'll do it right now.
SMART PHONE: Light blue and yellow. Communication, quick-thinking, intelligence, versatility. The gods Hermes and Quolaxi. The upperworld and heaven.
FAX MACHINE: Black and gray. Death, chthonic gods. Kafka and the bureaucratic underworld. Court and law magic, erases debts. Poseidon. Beetles.
LAPTOP: Bright, vivid shades of green. Hard work, prosperity, money magic, ingenuity and invention. Isis, Demeter, Hultan, Hephaestus. Good for instant manifestation.
PRINTER: On its own, red and violet. With scanner combo, sunset colors. Memory magic, protecting secrets, honoring ancestors. Getting good grades. Anubis, Iris, Old Scratch. Assists with faerie work.
your advice of creating/experimenting with the wackiest ways of reading tarot that one can think of (said very affectionately) actually inspired me to use a card game i was developing before to communicate with the spirits around me to get an idea of what they would like from me! very briefly the premise of the card game is that you and your friends are rulers of kingdoms, and various npcs approach you with problems to solve. you have limited cards with singular solutions on them that depending on how well they fit the problem, will either increase the npc’s goodwill towards you or decrease it. so i was able to modify this and have the court cards (i prefer playing cards to tarot for this sort of thing) substitute in for the npcs and hence the spirits im contacting, and the other cards be the solution cards, with the two jokers as null cards. im sure there will be future kinks to work out but i’m so pleased with the system thus far, because previously i had been unable to figure out how to get specific mundane answers from my spirits but this has both magical and mundane solutions that can be interpreted based on the question :D
oh and i wanted to give an example but forgot! today i asked a pepper plant on our balcony what would be most helpful/pleasurable for it, and the answering card said that i should ‘seek advice from neighbouring kingdoms’, which i interpreted to mean ask another human (as i represent my kingdom, so another human would represent another kingdom) what would be helpful for the plant. so i asked my mum (who is really the gardener of our house) if there was anything that had happened to the pepper plants and she said that that one specifically had been nearly fully uprooted by a strong wind storm the other day and needed to be restaked and stuff (which i was unaware of). anyways that was a really decent and unexpected confirmation that the communication had worked :)
This is simply so marvelous, thank you for sharing (and sorry in my delay in replying!)
Is there any chance you'd like to share the rules of the game? This sounds like such a fun system, I'm sure at least someone (besides me!) would be interested.
hello! another little question on tarot if i may.
when i read more casually my readings were usually very relaxed and with simple meanings, accurate with by the book meanings but not super specific. as i become more ambitious i became super motivated to learn all the nuance i possibly can, its an interesting journey but.. doesnt seem to work in practice. i always knew it but everyone and their mama will always have interpretations that can seem stupid to others, even among experts in the field. question is how do you deal with that?
Im seeing that as my study deepens and Im working with Apollo to achieve that, some interpratations that are organically coming up and rooting themselves in my practice can seem just straight up weird to some people. how do i deal with that? have you experienced that? everyone seems so Agressive about their interpretations being the proper ones.
Listen to me.
Listen to me.
You must engage in the most batshit methods of reading tarot. You must design your own systems of reading with all the glee of a young boy throwing rocks off an overpass. You must read tarot so bizarrely that it makes you feel like a mad scientist.
You must decide for yourself every rule and ritual which makes tarot "work," and you must develop methods of reading that hinge upon destroying those ideations. You must make vehicles of meaning, drive them as fast as you can down the freeway of tarot, and crash them at full speed into brick walls. You must laugh at the fiery destruction you have wrought, and you must sprint all the way back to the launch pad to begin building something else.
They will be Aggressive with you over what the cards really mean? They are fools. They do not know the depths to which you can tear apart their petty systems. They think the extent of tarot perversion is choosing the wrong meaning for the card. They think this because they have mistaken the surface of the water for the depths of the ocean.
They think the height of tarot discourse is whether or not it's okay to not memorize card meanings. They think tarot is a pretty sea turtle languidly drifting in a sunny reef.
Go down in that ocean and dredge up the most horrifying bulbous-eyed god-defying pale abomination you can find. Map out new depths of horror. Make friends with the purely absurd. Perform atrocities with tarot and hang each one around your neck like the badge of honor it is. Crack tarot's spine and drink from the fluid that drips out. Become a monster, do you hear me?
And when they smirk at you because they think they know better words to tape to the Knight of Swords, you will open your mouth and say the most dumbfounding shit that person has ever heard and blast them with a ray of psychic damage so severe it will make them question if they should keep reading tarot lest they be associated with someone like you.
"Well akshually, knight cards do the queen's bidding, so in this case-"
"Haha, yeah! Once for a couple of months I worked exclusively with a system where the four knights were the rulers of the deck. I divided up the major arcana cards between the knights as their servants, but since there's one card left over, I incorporated a system where one of the four knights was the 'ruler' of that reading. Then I laid out all four knights as signifiers and dealt the entire deck between all four knights and the reading was based on which omens were collected under the ruling knight."
"Haha, yeah! Once for like two weeks I assigned all the court cards to be my favorite anime blorbos and I read from a restricted deck that only used court cards and major arcana. I'd draw one major arcana card to be the battlefield setting and then two court cards. To resolve the reading I wrote fanfiction about the characters fighting and whichever character won would decide the outcome of the question. It's actually how I got started using creative writing as a form of exploratory divination!"
"Haha, yeah! One weekend I decided to find out what would happen if I read in such a way that sword cards could 'kill' other cards in the deck, and the Knight of Pentacles ended up getting 'killed' like three times that weekend and ever since then it's always coming up in readings about sadness and depression, isn't that weird?"
"Haha, yeah! Well today I'm reading with a system where I meditate until a recurring character from my dreams appears and asks me to possess one of my tarot cards, and today No-Eyes the Whale asked to possess that knight card, so that's why I'm not using your meanings."
Do they challenge you? They cannot challenge you. Are you not shuffling right? Are you getting scolded for not fOcUsInG enough when you shuffle? Look them in the eye and say something so deranged they will think about it for the rest of their life.
"Haha, yeah! I remember the last time I used those meanings, it was so fun. I got drunk, shuffled my tarot deck, and laid out piles of three cards around my house, sight-unseen. For the next three days I kept running into these little three-card readings hidden everywhere, but funnily enough, they all ended up being past-present-future readings of the ten second timespan when I picked up the cards. I even predicted getting the phone call about losing my health insurance!"
"Haha, yeah! I actually decided to re-assign every single card to my custom twelve element system, so I don't see the same divisions between the suits as you do. Look, this card is the element pearl! Pearls are an element, I decided a couple of months ago. It's a really long story but it helps explain what happened to No-Eyes."
"Haha, yeah! I don't use intuition to choose cards out of a lineup. I turn them all face up and select all the cards that I think are the most likely ones to show up in the reading. Then, I go through the entire deck and match every single card with it's polar opposite. Then, I put the deck face-down and flip cards over. If I flip over a sword or a wand card, I exchange my chosen card with its opposite, but if it's a major arcana card I keep both my chosen card and its opposite."
"Haha, yeah! I don't shuffle. Like, at all. Once I'm done with the reading I put cards on the bottom of the deck and then just draw new cards from the top of the deck."
"Haha, yeah! I mixed all my decks together and sorted the superdeck into piles of every elementally aligned card. In order to resolve questions I have a yu-gi-oh duel with myself."
Eat the tarot. Consume it whole and raw. Tear away at it until you fear there is nothing left, and then go back for more. Each time you eat its heart, it will become refined before your eyes. Assist the tarot in shedding its decrepit cloak of meaning. Rescue it by killing it. Rend tarot in your hands like a child ripping at crafting clay.
And if you destroy it well enough, and for long enough, it will be reborn in your hands as it was meant to be: glimmering and pure, whole and new, ineffable and eternal, your dearest friend,
and so shiny and smooth that no meanings at all can stick to it.
That is what you do with people who get Aggressive about what the cards really mean.
Witchcraft Asks #1-105
Here is the list of the 105 witchcraft questions I just finished answering. I answered one each day but feel free to answer them all at once or however you want to do it. Tag your it!
1. Are you solitary or in a coven? 2. Do you consider yourself Wiccan, Pagan, witch, or other? 3. What is your zodiac sign? 4. Do you have a Patron God/dess? 5. Do you work with a Pantheon? 6. Do you use tarot, palmistry, or any other kind of divination? 7. What are some of your favorite herbs to use in your practice? (if any) 8. How would you define your craft? 9. Do you curse? If not, do you accept others who do? 10. How long have you been practicing? 11. Do you currently or have you ever had any familiars? 12. Do you believe in Karma or Reincarnation? 13. Do you have a magical name? 14. Are you “out of the broom closet”? 15. What was the last spell you performed? 16. Would you consider yourself knowledgeable? 17. Do you write your own spells? 18. Do you have a book of shadows? If so, how is it written and/or set up? 19. Do you worship nature? 20. What is your favorite gemstone? 21. Do you use feathers, claws, fur, pelt, skeletons/bones, or any other animal body part for magical work? 22. Do you have an altar? 23. What is your preferred element? 24. Do you consider yourself an Alchemist? 25. Are you any other type of magical practitioner besides a witch? 26. What got you interested in witchcraft? 27. Have you ever performed a spell or ritual with the company of anyone who was not a witch? 28. Have you ever used ouija? 29. Do you consider yourself a psychic? 30. Do you have a spirit guide? If so, what is it? 31. What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started? 32. Do you celebrate the Sabbats? If so which one is your favorite? 33. Would you ever teach witchcraft to your children? 34. Do you meditate? 35. What is your favorite season? 36. What is your favorite type of magick to preform? 37. How do you incorporate your spirituality into your daily life? 38. What is your favorite witchy movie? 39. What is your favorite witchy book, both fiction and non-fiction. Why? 40. What is the first spell you ever preformed? Successful or not. 41. What’s the craziest witchcraft-related thing that’s happened to you? 42. What is your favourite type of candle to use? 43. What is your favorite witchy tool? 44. Do you or have you ever made your own witchy tools? 45. Have you ever worked with any magical creatures such as the fea or spirits? 46. Do you practice color magic? 47. Do you or have you ever had a witchy teacher or mentor of any kind? 48. What is your preferred way of shopping for witchcraft supplies? 49. Do you believe in predestination or fate? 50. What do you do to reconnect when you are feeling out of touch with your practice? 51. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences? 52. What is your biggest witchy pet peeve? 53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent? 54. Do you keep a dream journal of any kind? 55. What has been your biggest witchcraft disaster? 56. What has been your biggest witchcraft success? 57. What in your practice do you do that you may feel silly or embarrassed about? 58. Do you believe that you can be an atheist, Christian, Muslim or some other faith and still be a witch too? 59. Do you ever feel insecure, unsure or even scared of spell work? 60. Do you ever hold yourself to a standard in your witchcraft that you feel you may never obtain? 61. What is something witch related that you want right now? 62. What is your rune of choice? 63. What is your tarot card of choice? 64. Do you use essential oils? If so what is your favorite? 65. Have you ever taken any kind of witchcraft or pagan courses? 66. Do you wear pagan jewelry in public? 67. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your faith or being a witch? 68. Do you read or subscribe to any pagan magazines? 69. Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft? 70. What are your favorite things about being a witch? 71. What are your least favorite things about being a witch? 72. Do you listen to any pagan music? If so who is your favorite singer/band? 73. Do you celebrate the Esbbats? If so, how? 74. Do you ever work skyclad? 75. Do you think witchcraft has improved your life? If so, how? 76. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice? 77. Do you believe in ‘fantasy’ creatures? (Unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghosts, etc) 78. What’s your favorite sigil/symbol? 79. Do you use blood magick in your practice? Why or why not? 80. Could you ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t support your practice? 81. In what area or subject would you most like your craft to grow? 82. What’s your favorite candle scent? Do you use it in your practice? 83. Do you have a pre-ritual ritual? (I.e. Something you do before rituals to prepare yourself for them). If so what is it? 84. What real life witch most inspires your practice? 85. What is your favorite method of communicating with deity? 86. How do you like to organize all your witchy items and ingredients? 87. Do you have any witches in your family that you know of? 88. How have you created your path? What is unique about it? 89. Do you feel you have any natural gifts or affinities (premonitions, hearing spirits, etc.) that led you toward the craft? If so what are they? 90. Do you believe you can initiate yourself or do you have to be initiated by another witch or coven? 91. When you first started out in your path what was the first thing or things you bought? 92. What is the most spiritual or magickal place you’ve been? 93. What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who is searching for their matron and patron deities? 94. What techniques do you use to ‘get in the zone’ for meditation? 95. Did visualization come easily to you or did you have to practice at it? 96. Do you prefer day or night? Why? 97. What do you think is the best time and place to do spell work? 98. How did you feel when you cast your first circle? Did you stumble or did it go smoothly? 99. Do you believe witchcraft gets easier with time and practice? 100. Do you believe in many gods or one God with many faces? 101. Do you eat meat, eggs and dairy? 102. What is your favorite color and why? 103. What is the one question you get asked most by non-practitioners or non-pagans? How do you usually respond? 104. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest? 105. What is a pagan or witchcraft rule that you preach but don’t practice?
Gold and carnelian swivel ring, Greek Cyprus, 5th century BC
from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Blue glass goblet crafted in Venice, Italy, 16th century
from The Louvre
abnormally large trees please lend me some of your centuries worth of wisdom