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
Showing posts with label spellcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spellcraft. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Recording Spells
Blessings Darlings!
You've created your spell. Did you write down the associations you researched, noting why you went with one herb/color/sephirah/etc over the others? If not - do it now. I'll wait.
Okay.
THIS is EXACTLY the type of stuff that goes in your Book of Lights and Shadows - your research, your decisions, the reasoning behind your decisions. And once your do the spell, you write down how well the results were. I think of a Book of Lights and Shadows the same way I think of a lab notebook for a scientist. Also after the spell, maybe after letting it 'set' for 24 hours, record your impressions of energy work, spirit involvement, etc from the working of the spell. I was taught by Isaac Bonewits to NOT review/dissect that part right after the spell, because it can lead to problems with the "suspension of disbelief" one assumes during the spellwork.
Later, you should go over the spell - and you'll know what you did, and why. You'll have written down what worked, and what didn't. You can then start to analyze WHY things worked or didn't.
You're not recording this stuff just so you have a big BOLS, you are recording the stuff AND GOING OVER IT. That is the way you improve.
Frondly, Fern
You've created your spell. Did you write down the associations you researched, noting why you went with one herb/color/sephirah/etc over the others? If not - do it now. I'll wait.
Okay.
THIS is EXACTLY the type of stuff that goes in your Book of Lights and Shadows - your research, your decisions, the reasoning behind your decisions. And once your do the spell, you write down how well the results were. I think of a Book of Lights and Shadows the same way I think of a lab notebook for a scientist. Also after the spell, maybe after letting it 'set' for 24 hours, record your impressions of energy work, spirit involvement, etc from the working of the spell. I was taught by Isaac Bonewits to NOT review/dissect that part right after the spell, because it can lead to problems with the "suspension of disbelief" one assumes during the spellwork.
Later, you should go over the spell - and you'll know what you did, and why. You'll have written down what worked, and what didn't. You can then start to analyze WHY things worked or didn't.
You're not recording this stuff just so you have a big BOLS, you are recording the stuff AND GOING OVER IT. That is the way you improve.
Frondly, Fern
Friday, March 2, 2012
How Often to do a Spell?
Blessings Darlings!
So now you've researched herb/color/spirit/wood/whatever associations for your spell, put together some wording, gotten your gear together, and done the spell once.
Should you do it again? If you want to do a spell for the same thing again, for that matter, do you need to rewrite it or somehow 're-acquire' it, as in D&D and so many of its offshoots?
Well, let's deal with the second question first - you don't 'use up' the magic of a spell by doing it. Real life is not a D&D game.
Repetitions
Some spells you do once, and you're done. Parking space spells, for example. You need a space, you do a quick chant, you get your space, you say thanks, done.
Some spells get done more than once to be effective. I suppose I was first exposed to that in Raymond Buckland's first "Candle Magic" book, where for one spell I did I recall doing it for 7 or 9 days, moving the candles closer to the center each day.
It's not uncommon to repeat a spell for 3 days, or 7, or 9, or 13, or a whole moon cycle or whole season. It's also not uncommon for those longer-running spells to tweak them along the way. Maybe swap an herb or two, or an incense or oil. Maybe vocalizing differently - vibrating in a different key, singing instead of saying, what have you.
As always, record what you changed, and why, and the results in your BOLS.
Frondly, Fern
So now you've researched herb/color/spirit/wood/whatever associations for your spell, put together some wording, gotten your gear together, and done the spell once.
Should you do it again? If you want to do a spell for the same thing again, for that matter, do you need to rewrite it or somehow 're-acquire' it, as in D&D and so many of its offshoots?
Well, let's deal with the second question first - you don't 'use up' the magic of a spell by doing it. Real life is not a D&D game.
Repetitions
Some spells you do once, and you're done. Parking space spells, for example. You need a space, you do a quick chant, you get your space, you say thanks, done.
Some spells get done more than once to be effective. I suppose I was first exposed to that in Raymond Buckland's first "Candle Magic" book, where for one spell I did I recall doing it for 7 or 9 days, moving the candles closer to the center each day.
It's not uncommon to repeat a spell for 3 days, or 7, or 9, or 13, or a whole moon cycle or whole season. It's also not uncommon for those longer-running spells to tweak them along the way. Maybe swap an herb or two, or an incense or oil. Maybe vocalizing differently - vibrating in a different key, singing instead of saying, what have you.
As always, record what you changed, and why, and the results in your BOLS.
Frondly, Fern
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Common Spell Creation
Blessings, Darlings!
I'm going to start out the spell creating series with the types of spells most commonly done by us magick users: common spellcraft done by magic users. You have a need, you work up a spell, you do it, it's over.
These types of spells tend to rely heavily on use of correspondences and symbolism, and moving energy around thru' correspondences to the charged symbols. This is the stuff of spell kits: they provide incense/colored candles/oils/herbs that have some correspondence to the job to be done, and some words to be said. The buyer charges the symbol (often by anointing the candle with the oil or carving a word or two into the candle), then recites the words of the spell as a means of directing energy.
This is stuff you can also easily get together yourself. Lists of basic correspondences are all over the web, there are books full of them, etc. What color? You can look at a list of chakras and use the colors of them that relate to the need. Oil? Here I'd look up what COMMON herbs relate to the need, and add that to an unscented cooking oil - corn or vegetable (Okay, that's really soy) or peanut oil. Incense? On the whole, I'd say you can't go wrong with Jasmine, but that's because for ME all magic that I do pretty much happens in the Astral, and that corresponds to the Kabalistic sphere of Yesod. Your mileage may vary, of course!
Doing the research for correspondences brings two different things to your magical world. First - it helps increase your knowledge. If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I'm all for that! The more you have internalized the better your magic will be.
Second, doing the research work starts the magical work. It starts building your intent, it starts building the energy, it brings coherence to the magic. You don't get that from a spell kit - the kit may have all the correspondences down cold, but they are not part of YOUR energy or intent. Doing the work yourself makes them YOURS.
Powerful stuff!
Now, about the 'words' to a spell: they CAN be very powerful. Not the words themselves, but putting your intent out in sound to the universe. So don't be dependent on the words of others, unless you're doing some magic that requires some really serious invocation of some divinity. And that's pretty rare in spellwork - more common in theurgy than in thaumaturgy. So write what you Will. And, really, try to memorize it JUST because it hard to feel/look powerful reading from a cheat sheet! That's why rhyme comes in - spells are just easier to memorize if the words have rhyme and meter!
I'll cover 'how to magically charge an object' another time, this is enough of a blog post for one day.
Frondly Fern
I'm going to start out the spell creating series with the types of spells most commonly done by us magick users: common spellcraft done by magic users. You have a need, you work up a spell, you do it, it's over.
These types of spells tend to rely heavily on use of correspondences and symbolism, and moving energy around thru' correspondences to the charged symbols. This is the stuff of spell kits: they provide incense/colored candles/oils/herbs that have some correspondence to the job to be done, and some words to be said. The buyer charges the symbol (often by anointing the candle with the oil or carving a word or two into the candle), then recites the words of the spell as a means of directing energy.
This is stuff you can also easily get together yourself. Lists of basic correspondences are all over the web, there are books full of them, etc. What color? You can look at a list of chakras and use the colors of them that relate to the need. Oil? Here I'd look up what COMMON herbs relate to the need, and add that to an unscented cooking oil - corn or vegetable (Okay, that's really soy) or peanut oil. Incense? On the whole, I'd say you can't go wrong with Jasmine, but that's because for ME all magic that I do pretty much happens in the Astral, and that corresponds to the Kabalistic sphere of Yesod. Your mileage may vary, of course!
Doing the research for correspondences brings two different things to your magical world. First - it helps increase your knowledge. If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I'm all for that! The more you have internalized the better your magic will be.
Second, doing the research work starts the magical work. It starts building your intent, it starts building the energy, it brings coherence to the magic. You don't get that from a spell kit - the kit may have all the correspondences down cold, but they are not part of YOUR energy or intent. Doing the work yourself makes them YOURS.
Powerful stuff!
Now, about the 'words' to a spell: they CAN be very powerful. Not the words themselves, but putting your intent out in sound to the universe. So don't be dependent on the words of others, unless you're doing some magic that requires some really serious invocation of some divinity. And that's pretty rare in spellwork - more common in theurgy than in thaumaturgy. So write what you Will. And, really, try to memorize it JUST because it hard to feel/look powerful reading from a cheat sheet! That's why rhyme comes in - spells are just easier to memorize if the words have rhyme and meter!
I'll cover 'how to magically charge an object' another time, this is enough of a blog post for one day.
Frondly Fern
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Creating Spells
Blessings Darlings!
As I said in the previous post, any magic user can create a spell. It's not rocket science - it's manipulation of energy using symbols and non-obvious (that is, occult) relationships.
Let's start by differentiating between the types of spells I'm going to talk about.
The first is the type of, well, common spellcraft done by magic users. You have a need, you work up a spell, you do it, it's over. You may do the same spell daily for a full cycle of the moon for some purpose, you may do it every now and then over years or a lifetime. But every time you do it you do it anew from start to finish. To keep the Harry Potter references going - this presumably is what the Weasley twins do: They buy the basic cheap plastic toys thru' Oriental Trading Company like the rest of us (what, you don't order a gross of lightsticks before going to a Pagan festival - or a rave - or for your Survival Retreat?) and then do a spell they created on them to add the hoodoo they do. I'll grant that the edible ones are potions work, and different than straight spellwork.
The second type is what stands behind the 'wand work' magic that gets all the attention everywhere. You say a word or two or three - maybe in Latin or pseudo-Latin - and wave your wand in just the right way while concentrating, and is what Hermione can learn and execute. But NO ONE in the Harry Potter books seems to be creating these spells any more. You never see the adult Weasleys learning new spells, or talking about some hot new spell on the market. I'll talk about making this type, too - minus the wand worship part. And usually minus the pseudo Latin part.
There's no reason you shouldn't be creating both types of spells.
So, coming up, posts on creating both types.
And away we go.....
Frondly, Fern
As I said in the previous post, any magic user can create a spell. It's not rocket science - it's manipulation of energy using symbols and non-obvious (that is, occult) relationships.
Let's start by differentiating between the types of spells I'm going to talk about.
The first is the type of, well, common spellcraft done by magic users. You have a need, you work up a spell, you do it, it's over. You may do the same spell daily for a full cycle of the moon for some purpose, you may do it every now and then over years or a lifetime. But every time you do it you do it anew from start to finish. To keep the Harry Potter references going - this presumably is what the Weasley twins do: They buy the basic cheap plastic toys thru' Oriental Trading Company like the rest of us (what, you don't order a gross of lightsticks before going to a Pagan festival - or a rave - or for your Survival Retreat?) and then do a spell they created on them to add the hoodoo they do. I'll grant that the edible ones are potions work, and different than straight spellwork.
The second type is what stands behind the 'wand work' magic that gets all the attention everywhere. You say a word or two or three - maybe in Latin or pseudo-Latin - and wave your wand in just the right way while concentrating, and is what Hermione can learn and execute. But NO ONE in the Harry Potter books seems to be creating these spells any more. You never see the adult Weasleys learning new spells, or talking about some hot new spell on the market. I'll talk about making this type, too - minus the wand worship part. And usually minus the pseudo Latin part.
There's no reason you shouldn't be creating both types of spells.
So, coming up, posts on creating both types.
And away we go.....
Frondly, Fern
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