templemercury

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Mercury Day Magic: Casual Banishing Spell

Wednesday is, astrologically speaking, the day of Mercury. Mercury, so the mythology says, is the god of folk magic, so let’s talk magic (or magick if you like to distinguish between woo and prestidigitation. Mercury is the god of both).

Have you ever come into contact with nasty people you needed out of your life on the double? I know a spell for that. Here’s what happened:

A dear friend of mine and I used to frequent a certain local restaurant every Saturday morning, sit in our favorite booth over breakfast, and talk for hours. One morning, while my friend was in the bathroom, a group of four young women came in. They sat down, got some water, talked to the waiter, then immediately started staring at me, whispering, and giggling. I have albinism, so people taking a second look is normal and no big deal. The whispering and giggling, however, is complexly uncalled for. (If you ever see one of my people wandering about, don’t do that. Just don’t.)

It pissed me off.

When my friend came back from the bathroom, I told her about it and how it was irritating me. She confirmed that indeed they were staring at me and making obnoxious comments.

I had an aha moment. A few days earlier, I had come across a simple banishing spell and, as it turned out, we had everything we needed right on the table. In a not-too-serious, let’s-see-if-this-mischief-might-work kind of way, I picked up the ingredients and began.

First, you get a pack of fake sugar. Very important that it is fake. You open the pack across the top as you normally would. Mix in a sprinkle of pepper. Spit on your finger and mix it up. Set the intention. In this case, bitches begone!

Now here’s the tricky part, or at least it was for us:

You are supposed to walk past the person or persons and sprinkle it by them as you go. These ladies were not in a place where we could walk past them without being extremely conspicuous. Then my friend, also a woo-slinger, had a genius idea. She rolled the packet up in a used napkin and placed it on a plate at the end of the table where the waiter was sure to pick it up. His path took him right past their table.

After a little while, our waiter came, took the plate, and walked that enchanted packet right past the offenders’.

I kid you not:

Less than two minutes later, even though they all already had water and had been looking at their menus, all four of them got up and hustled out of there like their collective over-processed hair was on fire. It was utterly insane how fast and how well it worked.

My friend and I, both used to a little woo in our lives, looked at each other totally stunned. It is incredibly rare, at least in my life, for a spell to work so well, so fast, and so literally. A lot of times, the results of my spells come at me backwards, sideways, and upside down (I am a Mercury devotee after all—it’s very much in character), but not that day, Brother. Not that day.

Aside from being just a super cool moment in casual witchery, there was a greater principle at work.

The best magic is that which we approach in a light-hearted spirit, with a glint in our eyes, and a little mischief in our hearts. I didn’t know if it would work and, frankly, I wasn’t that invested in the outcome. I just thought it would be fun to see—like an experiment. So I brewed the brew, let it fly, and let it go. That letting it go part, by far, being the most important part.

If you hold on to your magic and hold on to the result, how can it ever slip your grasp and get out into the ether to do its thing? It can’t, so let it go.

Let it loose, let it rip, and let it go.

I think that might have to be my new personal witches’ pyramid.

When my great uncle disliked someone, he used to say, “I wish he’d go step on a lizard!”

Because I’m not yet a skilled enough witch to turn people into lizards, I wish these idiots all went and stepped on some… and that the lizards bit them back. Hard.

Casual Banishing Spell How-To

Ingredients

Splenda Packet (or other fake sugar)

Black Pepper

Your Own Saliva

Casting the Spell

Open the Splenda or fake sugar packet along the short side.

Sprinkle black pepper into the packet.

Either spit directly into the packet (if you have good aim), or wet your index finger with some spit and mix it into the packet.

Ask your gods or god for help adding a little extra juice to your spell.

Ideally, sprinkle the mixture near the person you wish would get lost. If this isn’t possible, find some other way to move the packet past the target or targets.

Watch them flee!

MOST IMPORTANT: Say a gratitude to your gods or god, thanking them for their help and acknowledging that you couldn’t have done it without them.

Do you have any go-to banishing spells? Let me know in the comments. The more spells in our spell-kits the better!

[templemercury]

How far does religious freedom go?

I was watching a long documentary last night on the Heaven’s Gate cult—my stomach turning with the tragedy of it. They showed video of some pundit at the time saying there was nothing anyone should or could have done about it because they were all consenting adults and they have their religious freedom.

Weirdly, today turns out to be National Religious Freedom Day. So that got me thinking:

As practitioners of an alternative faith, how far do you think religious freedom should go? If all are consenting adults, is there a limit? Even if it ends in the ultimate sacrifice?

[templemercury]

Happy Religious Freedom Day!

And second of all, just TRY to find a Religious Freedom Day meme with a pentagram on it. What are Pagans? Chopped toadstools? Oh well. This is obviously what the purple marker thingy is for in screenshot mode.

[templemercury]

Gratitude Prayer

Passionate faith begins and ends in passionate gratitude. And so Temple Mercury’s inaugural post is, fittingly, a gratitude prayer. You should seek to express gratitude to and for your gods as much as possible, in the moment, even improvisationally, letting one small gratitude lead to another and another and another. This prayer can be helpful in those moments when things are bleak and gratitude may be as hard to find as a hibiscus blooming in a snowstorm. You may not see it, but it’s there. This prayer can help you open your eyes and refocus on all the good the gods have given you and how you may pass that good on to others.

Gratitude, my love song to you

Love is patient and many-faced

Teaching me miraculous compassion

You sing it back to me

I, un-healed, go with you healing

Restless I, with you, bring rest

Safe and still my tempest past

Just and safe and still my Now

Gratitude, my love song to you

Love is patient and many-faced

Teaching me miraculous compassion

You sing it back to me

Love is patient and many-faced

May I, un-healed, go with you healing

You sing it back to me

May I, restless, with you bring rest

May I, un-healed, go with you healing

Safe and still my tempest past

May I, restless, with you bring rest

Just and safe my Now

Safe and still my tempest past

Teaching me miraculous compassion

Just and safe my Now

Gratitude, my love song to you