dragonsbookofshadows

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Sometimes alterhumanity is "My entire life, I have, on some level, been aware I am a dragon. Ever since I was young enough to even understand the concept of a dragon, I have clung to them and felt more welcome alongside them than humans. My desire for them to be real was because it would be the closest thing I could get to becoming one." And sometimes alterhumanity is "I appear to have spontaneously become a mouse"

[dragonsbookofshadows]

will you still love me when you find out I am an insane dragon that's constantly on the verge of rampaging a village every time I start spiraling out of sheer lack of self esteem

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Bring back bad art in paganism! I want to see what your devotion, your passion, your love and inspiration can create! I want to see digital collages, and pencil sketches, and charcoal leaf rubbings, and lopsided hand-drawn arches and gateways, and trees and flowers that don’t really exist! I want to see your faith made manifest in the language of your own mind, in the way that only YOU can transcribe!

[dragonsbookofshadows]

this is me in my hearthome. i tried to keep myself from going into too much detail, but i still managed to DRAW A WHOLE BACKGROUND for the FIRST TIME EVER.

:>

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Reminder that alterhumanity is a broad community and functions more like a spectrum of identities rather than a black and white "us and "them"-- there are far more experiences and identities than "human" and "nonhuman", and these two terms are not polar opposites !! Shoutout to demihumans, adanthropes, exhumans, ahumans, aldernics, ambianthropes, and everybeing beyond and between !! You are valid and you are always seen 🐾🤍

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Yes! I was so jealous of this dude omg

the draconic urge to fit into a very small place. like a rainwater drainage channel. or under the bed. you know into a very narrow tunnel. or a petite box. i need my scales to be cozily squeezed🙏

[dragonsbookofshadows]

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Crafts of the Witch Useful to Learn

Welcome to December 25th, here's some stuff about witchcraft to think about because you're on your phone looking for a distraction :)

So anyway here's stuff that's really useful to learn how to do before you actually need it because putting it all together for the first time on game day is stressful.

Creation and Desecration of a Poppet

A poppet is a deeply sympathetic representation of someone or something (usually another person).

According to the law of sympathy, whatever you do to the poppet will happen to the person it represents. You could cleanse and bless it, or smite it.

Poppets can be made in a wide variety of ways, from paper dolls, to clay figurines, to crocheted stuffies - anything you like. They also must be worked over magically to link them to their target.

The most ideal poppet is decorated to look very similar to the thing it represents, and is imbued with a taglock (such as hair, nail clippings, footprint dust, etc).

Learning Prompts:

The handicraft of creating the poppet - start with any arts and crafts you're interested in and see if they'll work for you

Practice making several poppets - you do not need to consecrate them. How easy is it for you to decorate it just like the real person? How easy is it for you to include taglocks?

Find a disposal plan. ""Voodoo dolls"" are steeped in public awareness; will it be safe for you to throw away the poppet in the trash when you're done with it?

Consecration or enlivening poppet as target. Find or develop a ritual to fill the poppet with magical life so that it becomes the target. Practice this once or twice (perhaps on a poppet of yourself, to cast blessings or prosperity magic on yourself)

Desecration or severing link. Find or develop a ritual to end the sympathetic link between the poppet and its target. Practice this once or twice.

Storage and tending of enlivened poppets. They are alive and they act like it. If you intend to have poppets sitting around for long-term spells or to use as-needed, you will need a system of storing them so that they "go to sleep" and remain undisturbed until you need them.

Consecration, In General

Here I mean "consecration" to be an act of magic which anoints an object as sacred unto a purpose, and therefore primed for magical use. In crude terms: you're making an object magical and giving it a purpose at the same time.

Consecration is a very useful thing to know how to do. In and of itself it can form a kind of minor enchantment (I consecrate this mug of oolong tea to be a potion of survival +1), but it can also prepare the way for powerful enchantments (I consecrate this ring to become a divine protector, ready to receive the powerful enchantment I soon cast upon it).

Learning Prompts:

Find or create a minor consecration spell which can be cast in under a minute. Strive to obtain one which is covert and can be done even in the presence of others. (Perhaps we could call this a 'cantrip'). Such a spell tends to be suitable for moving fate a few degrees over, or to dig a shallow pool in the tides of reality.

Find or create a hefty consecration spell. Consider what abilities or access you have that allows you to redefine the fate and purpose of an object. Contemplation of this spell can provide great insight into one's own belief and path. Such a spell may completely reorient fate, and carve new channels into the waterways of reality.

Practice minor consecrations on 5 different types of objects. Consecrating the tea, that's easy - stir it a few times. But how to consecrate a hairbrush? How to consecrate a mirror?

Practice major consecration twice, unto two very different domains. Perhaps a pepper oil of fiery smiting, and a crystal bracelet of deep soothing. This is an opportunity to compare and contrast the powers you raise when you work within different domains.

Desecration, In General; and Spell Reversal

To make profane; as in, to remove the magic from something and make it no more than a lump of physical matter, or a meaningless event like scattered dust on the winds of fate.

In my opinion, all witches should learn this - "don't raise up what you can't put down" also includes "don't enchant shit if you don't know how to undo enchantments."

To know how to nullify magic also means you can nullify unwanted and harmful things around you, and take the force and energy out of them.

Learning Prompts:

Find or create a minor desecration spell, one that you can cast on the fly and without tools or ingredients. Such a spell may be like a slapping a broom on a dusty rug; it will shake free things not tightly held.

Find or create a major desecration spell. Such a spell is like steam cleaning and shampooing a rug; it must remove every particle of magic and leave nothing behind but stripped fibers.

Practice minor desecrations 5 times in day-to-day life, targeting stank vibes and irritating situations that do not serve you.

Practice minor consecrations and desecrations 5 times by consecrating a stone, candle, etc., unto a magical purpose, and then removing the consecration.

Find an opportunity to cast a major desecration, which you may find the opportunity to do the next time the need for banishment comes up; or when sorting through old magical tools you no longer need, etc.

Find or create a solid spell reversal, one that you can use without having to have physical spell remnants on hand. Note that reverse to sender is not the same as nullifying your own magic.

Binding Divination Tools to Veracity, and Sundry Divination Management

Or if you like, binding veracity to divination tools. Binding is not baneful magic. Binding means to attach one thing to another thing, or to prevent something from being ways.

You can cast a binding on your divination tools to constrain them to only tell the truth, to truly peer beyond the veil, and only deliver what it can see; and never reflect your personal whims.

There's plenty of magic you can cast for your divinatory tools to make your life easier.

Prepare a binding spell to constrain a divination tool to only reflect the kind of truth you want. Do you want a tarot deck to only show your true state of mind? Do you want a set of runes to only read the will of the gods? Do you want your charm set to only read on the future, and not the past?

Find or create a protection spell to stop undue influence on a divination tool. This does not mean "evil spirits are manipulating your reading." Undue influence also means the strong emotions of querents, random psychic garbage, and the like; but it can also have an impact on the way you phrase questions and work with the tool itself.

Find or create a spell to enchant your tool as a magical seer/oracle. You can use a tarot deck out of the box, of course. You can also enchant it to be a magical object that obtains truth from mystical sources. Try it and see if you like the difference.

Find or create a charging ritual to revitalize your divination tools. This is a good opportunity to examine elemental energies; what kinds of energies are best suited to the purposes of divination and seeing beyond? The full moon is classically used for such purposes. Challenge yourself to recharge your divination tools once a month for 3 months, and see if you like the difference.

Blessing, In General

You have the power to generate and coalesce benevolent and helpful energies, and to distribute them into the world around you. You can bless anything you like, and perhaps the more the merrier; it's a very fine way to transform a space, and put love into the world.

Try considering blessings to have 2 parts; the first is to evoke a desirable force, and the second is to apply the force in a certain way: You could evoke the winter dawn as a blessing power, and then ask it to do something specific (provide a calm day, to make wise choices, to avoid bad traffic, etc).

Write your own minor blessing spell that you can perform in a minute or less. Try centering this blessing around a wonderful and benevolent force, whether it be a certain god, mushrooms, unconditional love, and so forth.

Write a separate minor blessing spell using a very different focus. Try the deep blue calming waters of the deep ocean, or the sprightly breezes of alpine hills, or the feeling of the first sip of a perfect bowl of soup; but make it have really different vibes from the first blessing.

Practice both minor blessings and see the difference. Challenge yourself to use each blessing cantrip 5 times. Try clustering the blessings to fill a space with that kind of energy (such as five items on desk blessed under the alpine breeze, and five items in the bathroom blessed under the deep ocean). Can you feel a difference in the spaces as you move in and out of them?

Write a major blessing using the various benevolent and lovely powers of your practice. This is another good opportunity to explore your practice. When you are in need of love, kindness, grace, and softness, what part of your path rises to meet your needs?

The Big Practice

Consecrate a poppet unto yourself. Bind and enchant a divination tool to be a powerful oracle of truth, and read on the most helpful equipment the poppet needs (RPG style: weapon, armor, familiar, potion?).

Whatever the answer, make a tiny container spell which serves the purpose. Consecrate it to be the tool that the poppet (you) needs.

Give the enchanted container spell to the poppet and cast a blessing on it, to be empowered with the new tool it has been granted in life.

Carefully store the poppet and its tool.

Periodically, perhaps between 1 to 6 times a year, recharge your divination tool and discern what new tools the poppet might need. Desecrate the old tool if you need to (or let them stack up), and consecrate new tools.

Keep the poppet and its tools for as long as you like, carefully severing the link between yourself and it when you're done with it.

[dragonsbookofshadows]

I will be working the following vocabulary into my everyday life to scare off normies:

Everydragon

Clawmates

On the other talon

Talonfull

The middle claw

If anyone has any other kind of dragon-y sounding versions of phrases/things please tell me

[dragonsbookofshadows]

i think the main reason why i never smile with my teeth, besides just being self conscious, is that to animals, bearing your teeth isnt a smile. bearing your teeth is a sign of aggression. i only ever smile with my mouth closed.

[dragonsbookofshadows]

hey if you use AI for any reason in practice I hope your PC explodes. while you're at it.

You, the person, aren't even creating the mashup. a practice is nothing without the practitioner, and you have clearly decided to no longer be involved.

Friggin. nature witches using ChatGPT to make up incantations are wild to me.

[dragonsbookofshadows]

"humans are animals" always seemed like common sense to me. it was baffling when I learned that some people see that as a technicality rather than an obvious fact ~ Felix

[dragonsbookofshadows]

I’ve realized that if a god were to ever want to get my attention for whatever reason it will be almost impossible for them to do so.

See, most gods have a sacred animal or species that represents them. And these animals are arguably one of the easier ways for them to send a sign.

But here’s the thing, I am like a dog seeing squirrels when it comes to noticing animals.

Birds on the electric wire? Cat in the window? Ants in the sidewalk? I see them all and I will be Staring at the critter.

So unless i’m seeing a flamingo walking down my street i’m unlikely to realize it’s a sign lol

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Super easy and cheap devotional acts for beginners.

A nice cup and some clean, fresh, water on the altar can often be all you need for daily offerings

Grow a plant on your altar, use your weekly watering as a devotional act. Hermes is currently helping my peace lily grow :)

Draw their sigil on your nails and then paint over them with nail polish that matches their color correspondences.

If you can’t acquire alcohol for your deities (wine, vodka etc) because you’re too young, white vinegar also works. The quality we’re looking for is the purification aspect. White vinegar is natural, antibacterial and never goes bad. You can leave it on your altar until it evaporates if you want.

If you work with a deity involved with self love like Aphrodite, investing a little more time into your skin care and scent can be very rewarding. Nothing super boujie, it can be as simple as getting some nice smelling lotion at the dollar store.

Food and water offerings don’t have to be external, especially if you’re in the broom closet and don’t have an altar. Reserve the first bite of your meal for your deity. Savour its taste while you think about them. Pour yourself a crisp glass of cold water and guzzle it as a devotional act.

Use a washable or dry erase marker to draw sigils on your shower wall for bath rituals. It’ll come right off when you’re done.

Tea bags are just bags of dried herbs. You can use these as offerings or draw sigils on them and burn them for witchcraft. No one is ever suspicious about a little tea. Adding a tea bag to your water offerings also gives them an extra kick.

A couple dollars at the thrift store will take you a long way. I love thrifting items because they’re usually well loved. I especially like thrifting spirituality books that past practitioners have written in. Sometimes my deities communicate with me through the books that are available on any given day. If I was just talking to Leviathan about the power of water and I see a book about Hydromancy, I know that he’s sending me a sign. Like, 90% of the books Lucifer has sent me popped up at the thrift store. Most expensive one was $7.99. (and I tag swapped it for 2.99 😊 thanks, Hermes-

and on this note, literally steal. Not from small local thrift stores, but I mean this with my whole chest, steal from Value Village. If you can sneakily swap a tag and get something for cheaper literally do it. Value Village gets all their inventory for free I literally do not care. Corporate thrift stores don’t deserve rights. I steal from Value Village as a devotional act to Hermes 😊 lmao )

If you don’t have money to spend on really nice paintings and posters of your deities for your altar, start buying books about them. It’s a double win. A book about Greek religion will certainly have multiple beautiful sculptures and paintings of Aphrodite that I can cut out and put on my wall. A book about angels might have a cool painting of Lucifer. Books about Goddesses, ancient religions, anthropology, astrology etc. You get the opportunity to learn, and if it’s a book you don’t particularly care too much for, you can take it apart for imagery. People ask me all the time where I got all of my paintings and pictures from. BOOKS.

Does your deity have a kind of complicated sigil that you love but you also kinda hate redrawing every other day? Sorry Cerberus (Naberius) I love you but that sigil is so complicated babe.

Learn how to block print! It’s very simple. You get a block of linoleum (usually pretty cheap, I think mine were like $5) , some ink (~$10), and a carving tool (varies depending), and make a sigil stamp! All you gotta do is draw your sigil and carve it out nicely one time. You can still bless it and imbue it with your energy, and you can easily put it on prayers, talismans etc.

Chalk is your best friend. Use it to draw sigils on the floor or wall that can easily be wiped away. You can imbue special chalk and use it for casting circles if you don’t like the mess of salt.

[dragonsbookofshadows]

New witchcraft tool-

Its both an athame, and a pair of scissors for snipping things. Best part is its cat proof, because my selenite athame I used got busted by my cat and the other got snatched by my mom to display 😑

[dragonsbookofshadows]

Simple Ward Against Spirits (and Other Varieties)

Forbidden peanut butter cookies

I've been very much enjoying working with a new style of ward. It's pertinent materia magica blended into air-dry clay, worked into small disks stamped with protective symbols, and hung up near doors and windows (or carried).

Sometimes I paint them; this time I just filled in the symbols with India ink.

The recipe is quite nice as you can make several little wards for the effort of one spell. And they work up pretty quickly.

The recipe:

3 substances aligning with intent (sets given below)

A small handful of air-dry clay

Paint or ink to decorate, as desired

Thread or cord to hang up, if desired

Clear-dry glue (modge-podge used in picture) to seal clay, especially helpful to block strong-smelling herbs

Steps:

Work over each substance individually to ensure they are carriers of power. Ensure each substance is empowered and aligned with its duties before moving on.

Blend all three substances into some air-dry clay (the clay itself is not worked with as a correspondence, but could be, if you're into it).

Divide the air-dry clay into individual balls and flatten them out into disks. You may have to add plenty of extra water to counteract the dehydrating effect of salt or herbs.

Poke a hole at the top of each disk (I used the back end of a matchstick) if you want to hang them up.

On one side of the disk, carve or paint any protective symbol pertinent to your faith. Pictured, an equilateral cross.

On the other side of the disk, carve or paint a symbol that expresses the specific sort of protection you're working (such as a very simplified sigil, or perhaps elemental or planetary signs you're calling on, or a minimalist animal, and so forth).

Once the clay is dry, coat with a clear layer of glue or modge-podge. This helps protect against moisture and minor chips but primarily is to stop the charm from having a strong odor if you use, say, garlic and dill.

Combinations of Materia:

Use perhaps an eighth of a teaspoon of each to start with; I find the clay can hold a lot of foreign materials, but expect it to significantly change texture and dry out. Of course, use any materials you prefer.

Use only dried herbs. Fresh will not do.

Against Evil

Dill (to perceive, forewarn, and shelter against against evil)

Garlic (to protect against evil)

Salt (to neutralize evil)

Against Unwanted Spirits

Garlic (to protect against the uninvited)

Red pepper (to set boundaries against the uninvited)

Basil (to guard against transgressors)

Against Unwanted Energies

Rosemary (to shield and shelter)

Clove (to create a barrier that limits energies)

Salt (to neutralize unwanted energies)

Notes:

The spell can "end" at any number of moments; you can seal it once you mark symbols, or only after it's dried and painted, or only after you've done knot magic to weave a special hanger, etc.

IME, a very powerful set of wards can be made by linking 4 such disks, each one to a different element, and hanging them in the cardinal directions as your path specifies; thus assigning an elemental guardian working in tandem with his brothers to guard those roads of egress. Try making a base formula shared between all four disks, and then adding a unique ingredient to each one of them that corresponds with the element.

Air-dry clay is fragile. These wards are not especially suited to be carried around, but can be carried in a pinch. If you like, the idea of a ward breaking when it's done it's job is very applicable to brittle clay disks.

You can work greater magic into them; knot magic for the hanger, earth magic for the clay, layering on more power if you paint, and so forth.