bargainbinwizard

[bargainbinwizard]

Italian Nirvana

[bargainbinwizard]

Transmutation Warding: Feeding Off The Haters

• Welcome Back, Seekers! Within my local coven, we’ve turned our focus to warding and protection magick as we prepare for the year ahead. I adore transmutation magick for warding! It’s one of my favorite ways to craft shields for myself, my work, my growth, and my success. Instead of constantly bracing for every hex, evil eye, or ill wish, this approach flips the narrative. Transmutation wards work proactively, taking any negativity sent your way and alchemizing it into fuel for your growth and power. Why waste energy defending against haters or uncovering their identities when you can let their spite feed your fire? Let them send their malice—it’ll only make you more powerful.

As always, take what resonates with your spirit and weave it into your own unique magick! My spells and workings are here to spark your creativity and inspire your craft. ✨

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Tools & Ingredients:

1 black candle (to absorb negativity)

1 purple candle (for transmutation and spiritual power)

Thread or Cord (any color)

A mirror (to summon your Fetch Spirit or reflect your essence)

1 clear quartz crystal or any charm you’re called to that can be left on your altar or within your space -  As a subtle sentinel of the ward’s power, clear quartz is a cherished ally in magick. Its ability to be easily programmed makes it a perfect vessel for your intention, while its amplifying nature ensures the energy of your working radiates far and wide. To the untrained eye, it appears as nothing more than a beautiful crystal resting upon your altar or within your sacred space—a discreet guardian cloaked in plain sight, silently weaving its protective spell.

Optional: Chalk or something to draw a circle (for creating a sacred boundary to hold the enchantment of your crystal or charm. If chalk is unavailable, let your finger become the wand. You can also use salt or any symbols you would like to use to draw out a circle.

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Preparation:

Cleanse your workspace and tools with smoke, salt water, or another method of your choosing.

Candle preparation, take your black candle and anoint it with a neutral oil, something simple like canola oil—or any oil you feel connected to for protection. Once it’s dressed in oil, sprinkle it with herbs known for protection, such as basil, bay, black pepper, cinnamon, or clove—or any protection herbs that resonate with your magick. For the purple candle, I like to use a neutral oil as well, then dress it with herbs that are perfect for transmutation, like lady’s mantle and yucca. Along with those, I often add a pinch of herbs that represent success and abundance—and don’t forget to include a bit of your hair, fingernail clippings, or something from your person to taglock the magick, connecting the work directly to your energy. Then bind the candles together with some thread or cord.

Binding the Candles:

Take the black and purple candles and begin winding the thread around them, chanting this, or create your own:

"I bind these flames, black and purple entwined,

Protection and transmutation, powers combined.

Through thread and flame, my will takes hold,

To guard my essence, fierce and bold."

You don't have to go all out like I did with those massive candles. Honestly, a couple of chime candles will do the trick if you're short on time.

3. Place your mirror above the center of your altar or working space, positioning it to reflect either yourself or the flickering flames of your candles (refer to the caption below the next picture for more context). Let it serve as a portal, amplifying the energy of your work. Arrange your candles in a fire-safe dish at the center—I often favor a trusty aluminum pie pan for this purpose.

4. Hold your crystal or charm in your hands, letting your energy flow into it. Visualize your purpose, your will, and your desire imprinting itself upon the object. Once your intention feels vibrant and alive within the crystal or charm, move it in a clockwise circle around the candles, envisioning it connecting to the fiery energy of your working—like a thread weaving them together.

5. When the circuit feels complete, place the charged crystal or charm before the candles. Now, cast a circle around the entire space, sealing in the energy. You can do this energetically, feeling the boundary forming with your will, or use chalk, salt, or symbols drawn ahead of time to anchor the space. This sacred boundary holds the power of your work, ensuring that your charm becomes fully and beautifully enchanted. And now, it's time to spark the flame on them candles.

I used a selenite tower in this picture as a stand-in to show where your crystal or charm should be placed. This isn’t the actual charm I used, but it gives you an idea of the setup. You’ll also notice my altar mirror hanging just above the space, perfectly positioned for the energy work. If hanging a mirror isn’t an option for you, no worries—simply place one in front of your working area instead. The reflection is what matters most!

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Casting The Ward:

Lighting the Candles:

With the bound candles before the mirror. Light them, starting with the black candle, then the purple, and then chant this, or create your own:

"Black flame of shadow, guard and protect,

Purple flame of spirit, energy redirect.

Before this mirror, realms align,

My (Fetch Spirit/Reflection) carries this spell through time."

Incantation of The Ward:

Face the mirror and focus on your reflection, summoning your Fetch Spirit or the reflection of your empowered self. Chant this incantation, or create your own:

"Anyone who cannot honor my essence,

Respect my growth, or stand in my presence,

Be it through disdain, envy, or intent,

Their fate is sealed, their malice spent.

Their energy flows to me, transformed,

Into strength, abundance, success reborn.

As I feed upon their misguided spite,

They are drained by their own blight.

Across all realms, my shield is spun,

Now and forever, this spell is done."

Seal the Energy:

Visualize the mirror reflecting the power of your spell into the cosmos, spreading the ward across all realms. Allow the candles to burn fully if possible, or snuff them out respectfully.

I love this picture! The flames intertwine perfectly, mirroring the energy I was aiming for in this ward of protective transmutation.

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Aftercare:

Charging your crystal or charm: Leave your charm on your altar or in your space as a representation of the ward. Each full moon, place it under the moonlight to recharge its energy, visualizing the ward growing stronger with every cycle.

Mirror Care: Cleanse the mirror after the spellwork with smoke or moon water to ensure it remains a neutral tool for future workings.

Final Words:

Maintain your crystal or charm as a talisman of your protective transmutation ward and remember that this ward will work continuously as long as you charge it and feed it with belief and intention.

Stay Wild, Stay Magickal, & Keep Seeking, Seekers!

[bargainbinwizard]

don’t ask

[bargainbinwizard]

As an alternative to 'sugar, spice, and everything nice'

I present: 'salt, vinegar, and everything sinister'

[bargainbinwizard]

[bargainbinwizard]

Brief notes on permanency in Witchcraft and the treatment mindset

A broad opinion my friends, take or leave it as you prefer:

Most witches, especially beginners, should not expect to be able to cast a single spell on anything and have the effects be permanent, forever.

Many witches, and beginner witches, work with perfectly good and fine magic, call power unto themselves, employ technique with skill, and achieve results. This is good!

Then, after a few weeks or months the effects will wear off, and that same person doing good work will just sort of say, ahhhh well. I tried, didn't I. That's too bad I can't really do magic that good, then.

Unless you are either remarkably talented at what you're doing, or unless you are neck-deep in techniques of permanency, most magic - especially stuff you find for free online - is best regarded as a treatment, not a cure.

Spell vessels run out of energy and must be recharged

Oils, incenses, and pertinent substances once applied lose potency and must be refreshed

One-shot spells, like a ringing bell, reverberate out into the world and then eventually fade away

The living world, both physical, magical, and beyond, continues to grow - and trees chopped down send up new saplings, old root balls start lapping up water, and termites wriggle their way into fresh wood piles

Therefore:

If something worked great for a while and now you need to do it again, then you should do it again.

If you worked hard at a spell and it got you some of the way there, but not all the way, you should rest up and do it again to get more of the way there.

If a frenzy of casting solved some of your problems, but not all of your problems, wait until you are rested and begin casting again.

If an old spell used to work, but upon recasting doesn't work, consider that the exact environment around you in your living world may have changed, and consider adjusting your spell before trying again.

[bargainbinwizard]

More Agrippa Salt

(a.k.a why I want to study physics so I can actually find out about real magic )

Note: I am not an atheist or anti magic since I believe in spirits and energy as everyone else does even though I'm not going to roll over and believe everything an old book is telling me. This is me roasting the hell out of a magic philosopher.

Now then I've got a question for all of the magical community. I'll even give you a million dollars if you answer it correctly.

So we have the solar system and their elements. The Sun is fire and the moon is water. Mars is also a fire elemental planet. Mercury is Air and so is Venus and Jupiter. Saturn is a Earth element planet. However Agrippa's Philosophy of Natural magic book says that

Okay, so we are on the same page then? Here's my question.

So if Mars is spiritually a fire planet...

WHY ON THE UNHOLY FUCK does MARS have ICE ON IT?? Yeah I said it. ICE. YOU KNOW, the cold WATERY shit that floats in your drink and keeps it cold????

And the temperature of Mars isn't better either. This is what I found on the NASA website.

Doesn't sound very hot now does it? Mars having water is already a doozy but it having more than 5 million cubic kilometers of ICE despite it ''supposedly'' representing fire is a spiritual abomination. It's the magical equivalent of a toucan breastfeeding a baby monkey. I know how it was in ancient times. Some guy looked at the sky a thousand years ago and called it Mars because it was red then people began to pull spiritual meanings out of their asses because of its name and color. If anything, ''Mars'' was an offering to the God Mars and therefore he kind of latched on it and also years worth of fire magic rituals people have been doing because of its name are now attached to Mars. Even red stars aren't the hottest stars in space,blue ones are with a temperature of approximately 40,000°C. In conclusion, red isn't always hot.

Sure, people may have felt hot energy come from Mars during energy work but would you at least consider the fact that you might be feeling the energetic ghosts of past fire rituals attached to it and the artificially added astral winds have fire coming out thanks to our old magic. Or Cognitive bias could be a factor in this as well. You're expecting fire so you're ''feeling'' fire.

Either way, I'm starting to think Agrippa gave his family food poisoning at Christmas dinner. He put the fucking chicken in his Red freezer and his coleslaw in the Blue oven.

[bargainbinwizard]

When I was a kid I had a book of like, "fun physics experiments for kids". And one of them was an "experiment" where you hold an object by a string and just by focusing on the direction you wanted it to swing, it would start to move in that direction even without your input. The book of course explained that this was the ideomotor effect, a phenomenon where your thoughts can create minute, unconscious movements in your body.

Then a couple years later I got a fortune-telling kit that included a pendulum. You hold the pendulum over a piece of paper that says "yes" and "no" and ask a question, and whichever way the pendulum moves is the answer.

At which point I was like "hey WAIT a minute", and in hindsight I think that experience explains most things about who I am as a person

[bargainbinwizard]

Spirit Vessels

A spirit vessel is a physical object that acts as a home, anchor, or conduit for a spirit, entity, or familiar. It can be used for communication, protection, spellwork, or companionship. Spirit vessels are common in witchcraft, necromancy, and spirit work, often used for housing spirit guides, familiars, servitors, or bound entities.

Types of Spirit Vessels

• Natural Vessels – Stones, crystals, wood, bones, or shells that already contain strong energy.

• Man-Made Vessels – Statues, dolls, jewelry, rings, mirrors, or bottles that are ritually prepared.

• Personal Vessels – Items that belong to the practitioner, such as a pendant, charm, or wand.

Choosing a Spirit Vessel

Consider the following:

• Material: Some materials hold spirit energy better (e.g., quartz for clarity, obsidian for shadow work).

• Symbolism: Choose something connected to the spirit’s nature (e.g., a silver locket for a fae spirit, an animal skull for ancestral work).

• Size: Small items (rings, pendants) for personal carrying; larger items (statues, jars) for home-based spirits.

Creating a Spirit Vessel

Creating spirit vessels can serve as a meaningful way to honor ancestors, connect with spiritual energies, and provide a physical representation of intangible forces. These vessels, often crafted with intention and reverence, can act as conduits for guidance, protection, and healing. They help individuals establish a deeper relationship with the unseen world, fostering personal growth and spiritual awareness. Additionally, the artistic process of making a spirit vessel can be meditative and therapeutic, allowing for self-expression and a greater sense of purpose.

The Process

Cleansing the Vessel-Before inviting a spirit, purify the vessel to remove residual energies. Methods include:

• Smoke Cleansing (Sage, Palo Santo, Mugwort)

• Salt Bath (For non-metal items)

• Moonlight or Sunlight Charging

• Sound Cleansing (Chimes, Bells, Singing Bowls)

Incantation for Cleansing:

"By fire, water, earth, and air,

This vessel now is pure and fair.

No harm within, no ill remain,

Only light shall now sustain."

Charging the Vessel-Hold the vessel and infuse it with your intention using energy work, visualization, or chanting.

Example Intentions:

• "This vessel shall house a guardian spirit for protection."

• "This ring shall serve as a link between me and my familiar."

Optional Enhancements:

• Sigils: Inscribe a protection or binding sigil.

• Anointing: Use oils (e.g., myrrh for spirits, lavender for peace, dragon’s blood for power).

• Blood or Hair (if comfortable): For a personal connection.

Calling the Spirit-There are different methods to invite a spirit:

• Invoking a Known Spirit-If you have a spirit guide, familiar, or deity-aligned entity, invite them into the vessel.

Example Invocation:

"By will and word, I call thee near,

Dwell within this vessel clear.

By pact and bond, remain with me,

Bound in trust, so mote it be!"

• Creating a Custom Spirit (Servitor or Thoughtform)-If you want to create a spirit rather than invite one, visualize the spirit’s form, name, and purpose. Charge the vessel with that energy and command it to awaken.

Example Statement:

"From thought to form, I give thee breath,

Bound to this vessel, life and depth.

In my service, thou shall stay,

By my will, by night and day!"

• Calling an Unknown Spirit-For ancestral work or unknown guides, use a pendulum or divination to confirm a willing presence. Never bind a spirit against its will.

Caution: Always establish rules and boundaries before allowing a spirit to reside in a vessel.

Sealing the Vessel-Once the spirit is inside, seal the connection to prevent interference.

• Wax Dripping: Seal with candle wax (black for protection, red for power, blue for wisdom).

• Thread Wrapping: Bind with string to secure the energy.

• Protective Sigil: Draw a sigil to prevent unwanted energy from entering.

Sealing Spell:

"Bound by word and light so bright,

This vessel holds, sealed tight.

By my will, this pact is spun,

This work is whole, it is done!"

Aftercare & Communication

Once the spirit has entered the vessel there is still much to be done to maintain the connection and keep the spirit comfortable in its new home.

Signs the Spirit Has Settled:

• Dreams or visions of the entity.

• Sudden cold or warmth from the vessel.

• Unexplained feelings of comfort or guidance.

• Divination confirming presence (tarot, pendulum, scrying).

How to Care for the Vessel:

• Offerings: Incense, candles, or small gifts to maintain the bond.

• Cleansing: Occasional gentle cleansing (avoid disrupting the spirit).

• Respect: Do not mistreat or neglect the vessel.

Releasing a Spirit (If Needed)

If you need to release the spirit, do so respectfully:

• Thank the spirit for its time.

• Offer a final gift (incense, a prayer).

• Open the vessel and say:

"With love and light, I set thee free,

Return now where thou choose to be."

• Bury, cleanse, or decommission the vessel afterward.

Spirit vessels are powerful tools when used correctly. They require responsibility, mutual respect, and ongoing care. Always trust your intuition when working with spirits, and never force an entity into a vessel against its will.

[bargainbinwizard]

Advice for if your practice is feeling stressful or unfulfilling (that isn't 'just stop practicing')

Before you expand: long text post!

I think it's interesting that the first line of advice stressed and unhappy practitioners often receive is 'stop practicing! take a break,' because besides a breather this doesn't actually do anything. When a person is done with that break they're still going to have the same stressful, unfulfilling practice they did before.

Stop practicing is useful advice for someone who is about to deep-fry their brain in uncontrolled Witch Fire. It's useful advice for someone who experiences unexplainable catastrophe every time they engage in magic.

I'm not sure it's useful advice for people who want to practice and are actively seeking help figuring out how.

So here are some ideas. Feel free to add your own.

If your practice has too much of a time load:

Scrape over-engineered ritual. Examine ritual formats. Are you spending a majority of your practice time engaging in elaborate ritual? Where can that be paired down?

Swap ritual for enchantments. If ritual performs an action (laying a compass), can you substitute for that ritual action by making enchanted objects that take less time to activate (enchanted compass altar cloth)?

Minimize ingredients. If you regularly perform spells that require lengthy enchantment of ingredients, can you use fewer ingredients to achieve the same results? If you're using more than 3 correspondences for any spell, is this because you are wise in your own ways, or because you just feel that more is merrier?

Mash rituals together. Do you have a string of rituals, even small ones, that you perform one after the other? Is it possible to reorganize these so they're all done at once, in the same ritual? For example, setting out an offering to the gods, a different offering for the ancestors, another for helper spirits, etc. Can you combine these all into one single offering?

Check for over-tending. Is it possible that you're repeating magical acts, like feeding wards and cleansing, more often than you need to? Did you arrive at this schedule through trial and error, or did you just guess this is how often you should do them?

Check for your own levelup: spell maintenance. If it's been a while since you re-evaluated your ritual/offering/maintenance schedule, your increase in skills may mean you need to do these tasks less often to achieve the same result.

Check for your own levelup: techniques and routines. Some techniques, like carefully entering trance, grounding, and centering, are like training wheels that wear ruts into our paths of magic. As we improve in skill, old rituals and techniques that have been carefully couched in these helpful devices may become ingrained in us so that we can perform them in almost any state of mind, much faster and easier than we could before. Experiment with any technique you've been doing for a while and see if you still need to perform time-consuming meditative or focusing techniques before you can perform the skill.

Be reasonable with your own goals. I find most 'laywitches' give themselves daily and weekly schedules that would put actual cloistered monks to shame. Did your spirits tell you they expect daily offerings, or did you decide on that an run with it? Where are you overcompensating and overexerting in your path when nobody, including yourself, asked you to?

If your practice has too much of a work load:

Much of the advice of the prior section applies. Also,

Just work less. Are you putting in 100% effort when 20% or 30% would do? Are you treating every act of magic like a performance review that will control the outcome of your magical career? I'm not being sarcastic; an actual solution to your path being too much work is to just put in less effort. If you've never tried this you may be shocked at how effective magic can be when you're only doing what needs to be done.

Find simpler, more reasonable stuff. Find new techniques, and spell and ritual formats that are paired down to fit the amount of effort that's reasonable to exert for any given magical act. If you can't work with correspondences without a lengthy act of activation, find a way to cast simple spells that doesn't rely on correspondences.

Limit research and prep. Ask yourself how much research you reasonably need to get started on any given project. Remember that a huge amount of a witch's education is experiential; you will probably never know enough until you've already done it three or four times.

Be goal-oriented; prioritize actions. Ask yourself if you've set arbitrary workloads before you can get started with anything, such as forcing yourself to write artistic grimoire pages before you're allowed to perform a ritual you're interested in.

Learn skills to help prioritize actions. If your practice is consumed by acts of upkeep such as cleansing and empowering objects, focus on learning energy sensing so you can reasonably determine whether or not an object actually needs to be cleansed or empowered.

Administrate your own practice - what can go on the back burner? Make a list of all your active ongoing projects and maintenance, including upkeep of energy batteries, spells that require maintenance, and situations you want to change and are casting spells on. Prioritize them; see which ones you can set aside.

Restructure your projects to minimize maintenance. Consolidate spells and projects where possible. For example, if you have multiple protection spells for many people that require upkeep, condense them all onto a protection altar so you can feed and tend to them all at once.

Work in batch and bulk. See where you can do batch work to lighten your load. You can bulk enchant candles and incense, instead of enchanting incense every time you do a ritual. You can enchant oils, waters, and incense to feed your spells, taking time out of upkeep.

Levelup your charging and maintenance skills. Learn energy work to attach energy tethers to batteries and other important projects so they're able to drink from the wellspring you attach them to, and stay charged.

Scrape routines that don't serve you. Examine any daily routines. Are you doing them because they're helping you, or because you feel like you're supposed to be doing something every day? See if you can replace more intensive daily routines with something less tiring, like a prayer to your path itself.

If your practice feels too silly:

You have a right to privacy. Cocooning is valid. It's fine to take steps to limit who can see and potentially judge your practice. You can keep things to yourself until you're ready.

Tend to your emotional wellness. Self-therapy, in any form you feel comfortable with, can help mitigate the inner eye of judgement.

Reduce your beliefs to palatable doses. Believing in magic for only the duration of your work is perfectly fine. You don't have to 'believe-believe' 24/7. If you're not ready to integrate the belief of magic and spirits into your baseline worldview, don't - you can agree to buy in to those beliefs only while you practice techniques and cast spells, and then put them away the rest of the time.

Scrape stuff you really can't get past. Ask yourself what about your practice feels silly. Are there trappings - like altars, ritual movements, and speaking aloud - that you don't like? Change them. Is the idea that religious faith itself is a bit cringe? Self-therapy (or you know, the regular kind) may be assistive.

Ask for help modifying your process.Is there something very specific about a ritual or technique that you just can't get past, but you don't know how to change it? Research and see what other substitute rituals are available. Ask others and see if they can help you brainstorm.

Embrace the silliness. It's not going anywhere. Believing in your practice and holding it dear and sacred is not the same as being ✨super serious gravitas✨ all the time. There are lots of things about witchcraft, and the acts of the witch, that are silly and make you realize you're doing something ridiculous. I came out here at 2 am after it's been raining to climb down a slippery riverbed to get a branch of a tree that I think is talking to me?? Because some medieval guy said Tuesday is the planet Mars and I think trees talk to me?! Ridiculous. Yet I still love it dearly in a sacred place in my heart. It can be silly and glorious at the same time.

Cast a wider net. See if you're barking up the wrong tree. Traditional Witchcraft, folk magic, lodge magic, chaos magic, eclectic neopaganism... these things are not interchangeable. If you've never explored different traditions, why not give it a go? You might find another path that feels a lot more natural to you. A lot of people fall into a certain path just because they don't know what else they could be doing!

If your practice feels unfulfilling:

What are you doing to bring yourself fulfillment? Why did you get into witchcraft? Make a list of your top 5 reasons (if you have that many). Which techniques, spells, and rituals are you regularly performing are designed to deliver these desires to you? If one of your goals of practicing witchcraft is to 'feel connected,' how often are you performing acts where the only goal is to make you feel connected?

Grow your path deliberately in the direction of your needs. What do you wish you had in your life right now? Is it the feeling of being loved? Inner peace? Feeling like nature is alive and watching you? Look for what techniques and rituals in your practice will bring these things to you. If there are none, find or develop them.

Ask for help and share your feelings. If you work with gods and spirits, do you regularly tell them how you feel about your practice and ask them for help finding fulfillment?

Find contentment in the process. It's vital to find joy in the process. If you have regular routines or upkeep you need to do, how can you modify it so that process in and of itself is satisfying to you? Try considering the visceral element of witchcraft: the words, scents, sounds, moods, and thoughts that you want to experience in your present moment. Witchcraft is experiential: a great deal of the experience you create in the tidepools of routine is under your control.

Contemplate the larger purpose. Some witches do have magical chores and responsibilities they can't or shouldn't shirk. If this is true of you, and you can't modify those routines, try refocusing on why you're doing them and the importance they hold in your path. See if you can find balance elsewhere in your practice that feels rejuvenating; sort of a 'work-play' balance of your own craft.

Set short-term goals you can celebrate. Are you undertaking a lot of 'workout routines' that are designed to basically make you magically buff, or get good at a particular skill, but you're doing them with no endgoal? Try creating short-term goals that excite your sense of wonder or accomplishment. Like, practicing tarot until you can read the Celtic Cross, or practicing energy work until you can make a four-element layered energy shield. Build goalposts for yourself, both in the short and long-term, and celebrate your successes.

Scrape routines you're not doing for any good reason. Are your regular practices things you're doing because they fill you with mystery and wonder, or because you're just pretty sure that's the kind of thing witches do? If you're bored or unfulfilled by a particular routine, consider stopping it altogether, especially if you can't think of any short-term goals that it's helping you work towards. Think about the reasons you got into witchcraft: what practices would help you fulfill those reasons, while also feeling good to practice?

Seek out a likeminded community. A good working group of friends can be invaluable. My close group of witch friends, whom I've been hanging out with for years, started as a Tumblr post asking if anyone wanted to make a small server to study witchcraft. Reach out and see who's out there to study with, talk to, and practice with. It can be loads of fun to do short-term study and practice challenges with friends, and a great way to get feedback and support.

Evaluate your spiritual relationships. Although it can be painful and challenging, sometimes we enter into our paths working with gods and spirits that after some time, we need to move on from. Is it possible your path has become stagnant because you don't want to keep working with a god or spirit that your path has been built around? It may be time to see how you can move on.

When 'take a break' might be helpful advice to heal your practice:

Of course, YMMV :)

'Taking a break' doesn't mean stop being a witch, stop believing in magic, or stop 100% of your practice. It can also mean putting a lot of projects on the back burner, switching to bare-minimum (or below minimum) maintenance, and squashing regular routines.

I'm talking specifically about taking a break in the interest of your own practice - not the conditions under which someone is ""allowed"" to stop practicing witchcraft.

Take a break to rest and let your seeds germinate. 'Fallow periods,' when you have no desire or motivation to practice witchcraft, and when it seems like there's nothing for you to do, are normal. Some witches experience this cyclically, perhaps during certain seasons or when predictable life conditions are met. There's no need to force yourself to practice when it's just not flowing. The snow on your mountaintops needs to melt to replenish your waterways, bestie. There's nothing wrong with you, the sun just isn't out yet.

When you're hitting yourself with a hammer. When something in your practice is triggering or harming you, and stopping will have no consequences, then stopping your practice for a while is probably a good idea. Use the downtime to seek healing or reformat your practice.

To open your life up for necessary work. Not every witch can out-path every problem. Consider taking a break when the problem is something you will have time and energy to work on if not for your regular magical practice.

When you're about to deep-fry your brain with Witch Fire. Consider taking a break when the problem with your practice is that you are practicing too often - such as fatigue due to excessive spellwork, divinatory obsession, trouble staying out of the spirit world (compulsive astral travel), or focus on spirits/magic/the spirit worlds are starting to erode your home, school, or work life.

To let the ripples settle. When you've done so much magic or ritual work that your life is a boat on a stormy sea, and you just need to batten down the hatches for a while and let things settle.

[bargainbinwizard]

Very often I forget that fertility is a sex thing to most people because agriculture and gardening is so much more important to me than sex or even romance

I hear the words fertility ritual and I immediately think of like- praying for a good harvest by like playing an instrument in a field.

Fertility rituals are when you sing or talk to your plants to help them grow more. Fertility rituals is burying bones and ashes and food scraps into the soil as a sacrifice to the plant gods. Fertility rituals are songs and dances and art made to welcome the growing season.

[bargainbinwizard]

LIMINAL SPACES IN WITCHCRAFT

Crossroads, man made or natural.

Rivers, creeks, or lake shores/beaches.

Hallways, corridors, doorways, stairwells, and landings.

Windows.

Graveyards, cemeteries, and burial mounds.

Dawn, dusk, afternoon, and midnight.

Valleys.

Fairs, festivals, and marketplaces.

Hedge rows.

Abandoned or empty places.

The edge of valleys, forests, and glades.

Swamps, bogs, and marshes.

Mirrors.

Birth/life and death.

Dreams or alternated states of consciousness.

The turn of the seasons.

Caves or underground spaces.

[bargainbinwizard]

I really really hate the term "Negativity" as its used in witchcraft. I have never enjoyed it. And "negative energies". "banish negativity" "protect from negativity" It doesn't even sound serious enough to bother acting on. it sounds like you've got rocks in your pocket to keep people from reviewing your dvd collection or oneupping your vacation photos. "negativity". do you mean ghosts or comments on your outfit. cuz i'm bringing both to the forest clearing along with a thesaurus. you sound like you're trying to ward a dinner party from the perpetually unimpressed cousin.

[bargainbinwizard]

Don't feel like dogpiling on the other post but I don't support shadow work as a prerequisite to witchcraft either. It's not now and has never been a prerequisite for practicing witchcraft. The idea that witchcraft is dangerous without it is very silly.

genuinely if it had a less edgy name, like if we were calling it "unsupervised self-reflection", I believe that shadow work wouldn't be one tenth as popular as it is now.

[bargainbinwizard]

I've seen astrological candles in a 21'' oz glass jar that cost 260 dollars on the internet.

Yeah...no. I'd rather make mine by myself by breathing really hard to make the energies move around.

anyone can be a witch you just have to get real good at ranting when an oil formula at the witch store is wrong and bad and wrong. this is our right when pedaled to by obvious cranks who think their Mars heavy barbeque rub with ashes in it is worth 13 dollars and tracks for onieromancy. The scandal. the sheer disrespect. the audacity. they think we're supposed to shell out for any waxed cork with a moon charm on it. well i've got news for them. i farted in that aisle. hows that for intention

[bargainbinwizard]

if there are any oh, say, well-known bastards you'd like to actively work magic against, tuesdays and saturdays are excellent times to speak death upon their image, eviscerate dolls made in their likeness, lay curses upon their tongues to speak rashly and be given to foil their plans out of rage or despair, or perform hexwork to injure and bring ruin to their causes.

sundays are excellent for tarnishing reputations and performing vigils seeking divine punishment, and turning followers away from them.

wednesdays are excellent for curses to foil their inventions, communications, and ideas, as well as to pelt their online presences with ill wishing or the sigils of spirits with which you work.

Mondays are excellent for curses designed to engender paranoia, restlessness, nightmares, foul visions, and curse their sleep to be fitfull and provide no rest from their anguish.

Thursdays are excellent for curses designed to increase red tape, for workings to address civil grievances, and spells cast to turn council chambers against them.

Fridays are best for workings intended to sour their affairs and drive them mad with senseless passion or to mar those features that make them appealing. you have a money bowl by the door, why not an ill-wishes jar for these trying times. Learning planetary magic? make a cute little daily study ritual of angrily shaking a jar with their pictures in it and spitting hexes at the appropriate domain of their doings. why the fuck not

[bargainbinwizard]

Hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know.

Some of you out there might be considering hypnosis to try and recover memories, whether from early childhood or a past life. You may have already heard criticism of it, but may have also heard that the critics are just trying to shut down important discussions. You may not know what to believe because when it comes to a lot of these memories, there's no real way to either verify or falsify them. After all, if someone goes under hypnosis and seems to remember an older sibling pushing them off a swing when they were five, but nobody else seems to remember this, who's to say who's right, who's misremembering, and who's just trying to protect a mean older sibling? And most past lives people report aren't exactly easy to check.

However, there is one area where attempting to recover memories is pretty popular, and where we can be really, really damn sure that none of these "memories" accurately reflect anything that actually happened.

That area is the starseed movement.

For those who don't already know, the starseed movement is part of New Age, which came out of Theosophy, which came out of the very racist brain of Helena Blavatsky. While not every New Ager believes everything Blavatsky said 100% (if they're even aware of what Blavatsky said), New Age mythology today is fundamentally really super racist.

The ancient astronaut hypothesis, which was created for the purpose of discrediting the engineering capabilities of nonwhite people and for which there is zero evidence to support, is a huge part of it. The mythology also asserts that Earth has been manipulated by a race of reptilian aliens who feed on human flesh, blood, adrenochrome, or even fear, depending on who you ask. The reptilians, supposedly, created religious institutions to control us, control most of the world's wealth, and start unnecessary wars for their own personal gain. For anyone who doesn't recognize the tropes, they're literally just old antisemitic conspiracy theories in a new hat. Most of their material can be traced back to David Icke, who was influenced by Fritz Springmeier, a far right conspiracy theorist. Furthermore, Icke asserted that the antisemitic hoax The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are basically true, if you make them about reptilian aliens.

There are various races of "good" aliens in this mythology, but the one that's specifically taking the lead in fighting the reptilians are the Pleiadians - beings who (at least initially) were described as tall, pale-skinned, and blond hair. In fact, another term used to describe the Pleiadians is "Nordics," because they were imagined as looking like Nordic people. And why yes, they have been associated with the swastika.

New Agers also believe in places that never even existed, including Atlantis (a fiction created by Plato), Lemuria (a hypothetical continent that was discredited by the discovery of place tectonics), and Mu (supposedly the "real" Atlantis, made up by a guy who claimed that the Maya were descended from Egyptians). Not only is there zero evidence that any of these places existed, but belief in them was often motivated by a desire to attribute the technological and spiritual developments of non-white culture to others. The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, a supposedly ancient book that this guy supposedly received from this mysterious Great White Brotherhood, for example, claims that that ancient Egyptians received their spiritual wisdom from Thoth, a king who fled Atlantis during its destruction.

So in short, just about everything the starseed movement believes in is total bullshit that can easily be traced back to some extremely racist propaganda or hoax. True believers claim that there's an ancient global conspiracy hiding the truth from all of us, but whether or not they realize it, they are invoking The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, that old Russian hoax.

Meanwhile, people in the starseed movement regularly undergo hypnosis to try and recover memories of their past lives. Here are some selections posted by members of r/starseeds:

"The planet had a wooden area with plants and very interesting buildings and one area that looked more desert , with construction similar to pyramids , ecc that were used as transmitters. We had a connection to Egypt . I knew we had to move planet because of a galactic war . Our enemies were reptilians , grays and these mantis beings … they were the ones that killed us in a crash while we were flying over a planet with super red sand and rocks. I’ve had this memory of the crash ever since I was a child but I thought I was imaging it. I am not into scifi movies , aliens or anything ."

"My home planet Artuvia was destroyed by negative forces (reptilian) in the orion galactic war, i left through a portal of light with other beings and came to Earth, i remember the portal, and everything around me falling apart and crumbling, the war was massive and many died, my planet was peaceful and had never known war, so when the war came most of us Mintakans perished, i believe the pleiadians tried to help us, but the planet fell, it was so beautiful there, paradise, i loved it so much it is my only incarnation outside of earth, i spent over 5000 lifetimes there before i came to lemuria, atlantis and agartha."

"Have you researched the planet Artuvia, we were destroyed in galactic wars some 75,000 years ago. Our souls came to earth in a move to protect the galaxy for we are to help create the next generations of starseeds here. From the Orion star system, powered by the star Mintaka. My memories have been resurfacing the last several days. Im getting massive amounts of incomprehensible information that I am reformatting and understanding. Its led me here. I am accessing the Akashic Records."

"Hello when i did past life regression i saw myself living in atlantis with other races, arcturians, lyran felines and others. It was futuristic and more advenced then they showing today, we had medbeds, flyng cars and spaceships, in middle was a some sort of crystal and guardians guarding it. At first i was confused what i was seeing at first i thought it was a island but no it was really atlantis, and one who created was dude named king atlant, thats why its called atlantis."

"The Great Galactic-War was the biggest conflict in this Galaxy. The horrible things that the Reptilians have done to my race are unforgivable, brutal and disgusting. They were eating my brothers and sisters alive. Without any remorese, brutally slaughtering everyone that was standing on their way. You could lose anyone after not paying attention. So many beautiful and precious souls that I couldn't protect were lost to their murderous instincts, so many memories, families, were destroyed. I couldn't watch no more suffering from my brothers and sisters. Blood everywhere. They are coming. Blue ground, chaos."

Oh, and by the way, there are other people who aren't even using hypnosis, apparently - some of them report intense dreams, or having "memories" just randomly come to them. So, that's definitely also a thing to keep in mind.

In any case, if somebody starts pushing you to try hypnosis to recover memories of any kind, I recommend putting some distance between yourself and that person ASAP. Because we can see from the starseed movement that this shit just doesn't work the way a lot of people want to think it does, and it can get you into some bad places.