You asked for it, you got it!

Blessings Darlings!

I'm assuming that most of the folks reading this are not 'essential workers' and working full time (or more) during the pandemic.  Which means y'all are at home, and have more free time on your hands.  But along with that free time, you don't have money since you're not working.  And most of  y'all aren't trying to adjust to homeschooling (I suppose I should blog about transitioning to that sometime, too.)

Have you ever said that you wished you had free time to work on your magic/spirituality/etc?  Well my dear - you asked for it, you got it!  All the free time in the world.

So what are you doing with this time?  What books are you reading and working?  What courses are you taking?  How much more time are you putting into your daily practice?  Doing more offerings?  More meditation?  Are you doing your basic self care, and drinking water, getting some exercise, eating your 5 - 9 servings of fruits and non-starchy veggies a day?

I'm trying a little desperately to catch up on the Strategic Sorcery course, reading several pagan/magic/esoteric books, failing on drinking enough water, and ... now that the restaurant I worked in is closed, failing on my fruit and veggie intake most days.  It was so much easier when I had a full salad case to make my salads out of!  Already chopped red onions, tomatoes, lettuces, spinach, cucs, carrots, etc.  Ah well.  I'll continue to work on improving that tomorrow. 

Most of you have that time you longed for.  So are you using it?

More on this tomorrow ...

Frondly, Fern

Sensing Energy 101

Blessings, Darlings!

Mostly - sensing energy just takes practice. But setting up an A/B test (or A/B/C test, in this case) helps by setting up a setting where you have clearly different energies.

I'm going to assume that you have a kitchen floor that is not carpeted. If it is - I'll have ideas for you to use to modify this after the main article.*

Sweep your entire floor. Wash half of it in your usual way, with whatever products you usually use. Let it dry (wipe it dry if you're in a hurry!) Compare what you feel, standing on the washed vs unwashed parts. Use all your senses - you might be best as visual energetic cues, audible ones, scents, etc. Touch might work, but might not be the best sense for this, because clean surely feels different that a floor that might be sticky! Still, holding your hand just over each side might have you feel different things on each side - different temperature/pressure/other sensations (this is why a dry floor is best for this, being wet alone would give some false positives) And while you might sense a different taste on both sides, obviously don't go licking the floor.

Feel a difference? Wonderful! THAT is just from a basic cleaning.

Now, wash the rest of the floor, just like before.

That done? Great! Now charge some spiritual/magical cleanser, and add it to a new batch of wash water, along with your usual cleaning products. Salt, hoodoo floor washes, Florida water, a little lemon extract/oil/juice, all are good for this. To charge whatever you're using, put it in a small bowl, hold it in both hands, announce to it what you're charging it for (all these things can be used in several different ways, after all). Then - I'm really being basic here for charging, since I've not covered that in this series yet - do what you can to 'push' that flavor of energy into it. All of the products I named (save for the floor washes, which vary by purpose) easily pick up 'spiritual cleansing' vibes.

Now wash half of your floor with THAT mix, and dry the floor.

Repeat the 'sensing' part. Notice what you feel, in all your senses.

Write all results down in your lab notebook/journal/whatever.

* Carpet modification. Use Vacuum/don't vacuum and spread charged salt on half of it for 15 minutes before vacuuming all of it.

Frondly, Fern

GATES, AND GATE KEEPERS, IN OCCULT STUDIES

Blessings Darlings!


How many of you are familiar with Odysseus' trip to the underworld? It was a necessary stop on his way home (he needed the advice of a shade there). But first he had to be told that he had to, uh, go to Hades. He had to buy a goat, to sacrifice once he got to the part of Hades he was traveling to. He had to drag the dang goat along as he traveled.
Ever smell an adult male goat that you are keeping REALLYCLOSE quarters with?
He had to find the entrance to Hades. He had to take the path downward. He had to cross the river Styx (and pay the gatekeeper there). He had to travel thru' different parts of Hades, to find where the shades he wanted to chat with were. Once there, he had to sacrifice the goat, and only let those shades that he wanted to speak drink the blood.
Then he had to get out ... the same way he came in.
This, my darlings, is a pretty typical entrance to Occult Studies. It is a trip that you need to do work on before you even KNOW that you need to take the trip. Once on the trip, there are gates, and gatekeepers. It is fraught with challenges and dangers.
It . Is . Not . 'Inviting' .
The path exists in equal parts to purify and to screen folks out.
To not let you enter the mysteries unless you are worthy, unless you have already started the Great Work.
Yes, the outer court information and rituals of Wicca are out there and available to all. Those are not the Mysteries.
Yes - no one can 'keep you from the Gods'. But that doesn't mean that a group, and certainly an egregore, is going to accept you if you don't make it thru' the screenings/gates/past the gatekeepers.
Here, this link explains why another religion, Judaism, makes it hard to convert, which rather explains why this protects their egregore:

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/248165/jewish/Why-Do-Rabbis-Discourage-Conversions.htm

Frondly, Fern

You're a Witch, Darling - act like it!

Blessings Darlings!

There has been quite a spate of "OMGs, there are spirits in my new house!  I must banish them all!" posts in Facebook groups recently.

In Witch/pagan/occult Facebook groups. 

Therefore, in groups where folks should fucking EXPECT TO BE INTERACTING WITH FUCKING SPIRITS FUCKING REGULARLY.

Seriously?  You've trained to be able to see/notice spirits, and NOW you're freaking out that ... you see them?  Really?  REALLY?  You want them to all go away?

What, exactly, did you expect your training to lead to? 

Chat with them, like any OTHER roomie that you have/have had.  Set up ground rules, IF they are being a problem.  Do divination if you need some help.

But, really, you've been TRAINING for this.  You've INVITED this type of thing.

Stop whining that you got results.

Frondly (?), Fern

You're not REALLY going to eat that.

Blessings Darlings!

Back in May I posted about eating weeds, and how bitter some of them are.  And WAY back, when I reviewed the Hunger Games books, I posted about how the author had clearly never eaten the dandelions she had her characters eat and enjoy.  And folks in Pagan groups online seem to post ALL THE TIME about edible wild plants - "And the seeds of plantain and etc can be ground into flour and cooked and eaten!"

Well, yeah, they can be.  But the odds are you aren't going to enjoy eating them.  That we know that they can be eaten is not a celebration of edible weeds so much as a commentary on how desperate folks have been in the past, by folks who are NOT desperate, and have never eaten them, today.

Yes, for us preppers and, probably, for us pagans it's important to know options that you have.  But that has to be coupled by having actually DONE the things you are telling others can be done.  Armchair knowledge without experience is 99% useless. 

I LIKE bitter foods, and can't eat most wild greens without 1 - only harvesting the youngest leaves; 2 - soaking them in several changes of CLEAN water before cooking 3 - cooking them; 4 - mixing the with other foods to help hide the bitterness.  My husband does NOT like bitter foods - if I was to assume that, in time of Great Need, I could feed him them, and I'd find out right quick that he'd ot be able to choke them down.  And a friend HAS gathered and ground seeds from plantain, cooked it, and found it pretty much inedible. 

"Intellectually knowing" that something can be done, "Intellectually knowing' how to do something, is not at all the same as having done it. This is both a prepper and an occult fact. 

Put down the book. Turn off the internet. Go out there and DO SOMETHING.

Frondly, Fern

Fire Protection, Redux

Blessings Darlings!

As many of you recall, last August/September there were some terrible fires in the Texas region, brought on in part by severe drought.    Some Pagans on Facebook got together to fight the fires by trying to get a hurricane to hit the area, as I noted here.

They never updated their Facebook page to say if they felt that they succeeded, or if they didn't how to do magic better.  I'll do that for them right here because I'm nice that way.

Here's the USGS Drought Monitor summary for last year.  It seems to be missing the last few months but DOES include the ends of July and September - the time the group was working in.  What happened? The drought continued to increase.  Here's the summary for the first 12 weeks of 2012, so you can compare the beginning of 2012 to the beginning of 2011.  What happened? The drought is worse now than it was early last year.  I'm having trouble finding any archives of the fires from last year to link to, sorry about that.  As I recall ... the number and acreage involved increased during September.

I am NOT here snarking about trying to do big magic. I am all for that. I AM pointing out that the group didn't like me bringing up how they were going to measure success or failure to the point of refusing to consider doing any measurements.

Looks to me like the magic failed.  Just like the magic my coven did for "Peace" during the Olympics .... and within a week Russia and Georgia were at war.  Not all magic works, and when it doesn't - heck, even when it DOES work - you need to look at what did and did not work.  That is how you LEARN.  That is how your magic IMPROVES.

Have a few extra bucks and want to improve your magic?  Pick up one of those "Spell a Day" books published by Llewellyn, and do the spells .... and look into why they call for this, that, or the other 'ingredient'.  Or look at the goal and make up and do your own spell for that.  Yes, a spell a day. Just like if you were learning piano or martial arts you'd practice daily.  Just like a baby learning to walk practices and practices and practices.

Go forth and be wonderful.

Frondly, Fern

Vibrating Sacred Names/Words/Chants

Blessings Darlings!

Did I just say that out loud?  Well, yes, I did, when I scheduled the post. 

In my magical universe there are many ways I can magically bring things into being.  Writing them down is one way to do that - a to-do list is very potent magic for me.  But saying something out loud is another.

Ah, the magic of words.  Of keeping your word. Of making an announcement to the Universe and inviting the Gods and all your friends and enemies to laugh at you.  Powerful stuff!

Add to that the concept in Western Magical Tradition (probably brought over via Theosophy from Asian religions) of VIBRATING things into the universe, especially of vibrating Sacred Names!  Power raised several <   not iterations.  Not decimal places.  Logarithmetly? How is that spelled? >

I never 'got' the idea of vibrating things into the universe until the Smithsonian Institution showed me how it's done.  Well, the Institution didn't do it ....

What happened was that the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian, on the Mall in DC, had Tibetan Monks create a huge, elaborate mandala out of colored sand.  It took them weeks to do it.  And every day before they got to work on it, they would first chant.  I don't have a clue what the English version of they were chanting was.  But the WAY they chanted - I assume that Siberian Shamanic Throat Music must be similar.  It was astonishing.  You KNEW that those chanted words were 'being vibrated out into the Universe" in some special way. 

You can hear things like it at this reference:

 the interesting stuff at about 10 seconds in.

Frondly, Fern

Ornithomancy

Blessings Darlings!

The Mighty Suzanne Thackston has a new Pagan Examiner article out! 

I would SO love to know more about birds and ornithomancy. Of course, the basic bird knowledge would have to come first.  At this point I don't recognize enough of them to do any divination via them. 

Just another thing on my to-do list.  And it's a heck of a LONG to-do list!

Frondly, Fern

Archetype Spells

Blessings Darlings!

Blessings Darlings!

We've covered common spells, we've covered insta-spells. 

More powerful yet, and ones that I've only thought about in theoretical terms and not even tried to create yet, and Archetype Spells.

These would take a team and probably decades to put in place.  These are the type of spells taught in Harry Potter - do a hand motion JUST SO while saying a word or two JUST SO. 

My theory is that doing this takes the insta-spell set up, plugs it into a superior source of power, and makes it so anyone can pull the trigger.  One person or a group can create it and get it to the insta-spell stage.  From there the rest of the group works on it, maybe daily, certainly at least at certain times of the month, to make it universal.  All using the same Otherworld set up, all using the same gesture and words.  Maybe it has to be taught by 'apostolic succession' - those who created it taught others, who then taught others.  Could the apostolic succession take place in dreams? Sure, why not - plenty of sacred stories show that happening.  It's a way that can't be relied on, but WOULD explain the re-discovery of types of magic long lost that are being recovered.  Ivo Dominguez, Jr, talks about inspiration he's gotten that sounds much like that in his book "Castings: Creating Sacred Space" - recently released by Weiser books!  Yay Ivo! Yay Ankhie (the Weiser logo is an Ankh).

Ultimately I suppose that the spell would move from servitor to egregor ....

Of course I'd like to see these type of spells being done again.  Will it happen in the next astrological age? Dunno.  I'm quite sure I won't be creating any this life time!

Frondly, Fern

Innovations in Magick

Blessings Darlings!

Hermione Granger is a kick-ass character in the Harry Potter book series.  She is smart.  She is brave.  She grows and changes over the course of the series.  She may well be the BRIGHTEST witch of 'our age' in the book.

But in my never humble opinion, she is not the MOST TALENTED witch of 'our age' in the book.  That honor belongs to the Weasley twins.

Yes, they got few O.W.L.s.  They are not academics.  They are brilliant, practical, practicing, perfecting Mages. They created new spells that they used in their products.  The spellwork/products took some extensive testing, with some amounts of mistakes made and problems having to be solved.

They were INNOVATORS.  They made their own spells.  Hermione never did that, never seems to have THOUGHT of doing that.  She's great for memorizing what others have worked on, but does not create things herself.

But all those spells Hermione mined from books and teachers were created by someone, at some time. 

So what? This is the real world!

Look, I know that most folks out there, even those who say they are on pagan or occult or witch or magical paths are 'armchair occultists' - readers who don't do any actual magic.  Of the people who DO actually do any magical or occult work, most just use spells they got from one source or another.

Then there are the folks who create spells.  You can be one of those folks. 

Over the next week or so I'll start posting on what goes into creating spells, both what I'd say is behind the type of spells in Harry Potter and those that folks like you and I can create.

It's not rocket science.  It's .... magic.

Frondly, Fern