magic-study

[magic-study]

"before it was called science it was called Natural Magick" the vast majority of western thinkers used the term "Natural Philosophy" and you damn well know that.

[magic-study]

Accidentally dropped off an apartment application on the day of the full moon. The number of the building I'm applying for reduces to 8. And I got free ice cream today!!!

[magic-study]

Thisssss!!! I've always hated the 'natural vs unnatural' mindset. Literally everything is natural. Humans are natural creatures, which means everything we do is natural. It's such a useless distinction.

(Also, yes, less slavery is a good thing, Stephaneigh.)

my youtube is all witchy reccs cuz gearing up for spring has meant spring cleaning which means background noise and now my homepage is hippies "exposing" lab grown crystals. stephaneigh. you're wiccan. You're vegan. You never shut up about harm reduction. but crystals produced in a lab without child labor and slavery are fake? it's the child slavery that makes the material useful to you? hate to break it to you but uh. Laboratories? on earth? Also from the earth, steph. you're lookin a little bit dumb af

[magic-study]

Yessssss all of this! There's a local place that makes a "four thieves" soap that I use whenever I feel like I need a good protective layer on me.

people shit on bath magic so much in (self diagnosed) "hardcore" witchcraft circles. everywhere. and like. self own. you're into witchcraft and you can't think of how soaking things in other things might be useful? probably hits hard if you have 0 alchemies

[magic-study]

a friend showed me how many appalachian folk magic books are out now and I was almost sad about it till I remembered witchcraft authors do not generally write historically or regionally accurate vivisections of folklore to a high enough degree of parity to cause trouble beyond rendering a topic completely unresearchable by swarming it like locusts and milling out a fresh new content farm hedge industry based on its SEO clustering and namedrop to decorate their specific brand of whimsigoth granola influencer shamanism so I feel like the core spirits are safe. but i do expect to see appalachian orgone pyramids declared a secret witch cult thing that has always happened there and has something to do with the terrifying rugged pointiness of the upper eastern mountain ranges, including powerful, traditional, authentic appalachian ingredients, like roots that cannot grow there and cat yronwode recipes. also stop plucking the goddamn ghost pipes and the endangered trilliums oh my fucking god.

[magic-study]

I just saw a book suggest patchouli as a way to connect more closely to the Appalachian region and on that horrible note, I want to say that when claiming to adhere to a bioregional practice, the bio part of that should be specific to the region you live in.

All I know about patchouli is that I tend to find the perfume revolting. I don't know much more than that because it doesn't grow around here, so it's irrelevant to my personal practice.

However, I can almost wax poetic about broadleaf plantain. This is a common weed that can be found on any stretch of grass here. It doesn't even need to be harvested or crafted into a tincture or a salve (unless you wanted to) - for the majority of its use, you need only chew it up and spit it out.

Plantain leaf (not to be confused with the banana) can immediately provide relief for bee stings, mosquito bites, cuts and scrapes, and it can help back out a sliver - all just by making a poultice from the chewed up leaves.

Get good with your local plant spirits.

[magic-study]

This is so cool!!! 😍

May Day Honeysuckle Syrup

I was delighted to find honeysuckle blooming already on May Day. While it’s not completely unusual, often it’s a week or two later before it blooms.

I foraged along the barbed wire fence line and the thick vine that grows in the possumhaw tree and found just enough to make a first small batch of the season (leaving behind plenty for the bees.

The recipe I have used in previous years is done in an hour, but after having so much success with a longer steeping time with the redbud syrup this year, I wanted to do the same with the honeysuckle syrup. So I poured 1 and 1/4 cup boiling water over the 1 cup of blossoms and let it steep in the fridge for approximately 36 hours.

After removing the blossoms I added a cup of sugar and brought it to a boil and then immediately to a low simmer. I wanted a thick, honey like syrup so I allowed it to simmer for about an hour.

This syrup has a heavily floral, honey like flavor. The longer steeping time made a much more flavorful syrup. I will use this syrup much as I would use honey.

The first thing I made was a peanut butter, honey suckle, and bacon sandwich! 🤤

@magic-study

[magic-study]

Omg I love this, would you be willing to share your process?

Working on a May Day batch of honeysuckle syrup.

I foraged just enough for a small bottle.

[magic-study]

Black Phillip by Kitty Grimm (2022)

Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VyN8G5

[magic-study]

Please share this wherever you can.

[magic-study]

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

[magic-study]

Just a little throwback to the time I let Heinrich Kramer take up my headspace. Disgusting.

[magic-study]

Just a reminder...

As a witch, and especially if your practice is anything like hands-in-the-dirt, wading into rivers, bones and teeth folk witchcraft, you don't have to settle for anything.

You don't have to wait for good things to happen to you out of the random walk of life. You don't have to be a passive vessel in your own life, either.

You've got magic. Make shit happen.

[magic-study]

Christian Elements and Various Blasphemies

If one starts researching Early Modern European or American folk magic, it will soon become evident that the influence of Christianity is something that is unable to be separated from it. Many charms still used today call on Christian powers; take, for example, this verse for healing burns, found in various permutations:

"Three ladies came from the east, one with fire and two with frost. Out with the fire, in with the frost, father, son and holy ghost."

Many over the ages have used the Bible as a magical object; whether that be as an object of power for various aims like healing, a divinatory aid, or using various psalms sourced from its pages as spells. There are even entire traditions (albeit not witchcraft-related) that gain their magical power from Christian forces, such as the Pennsylvania Dutch and the associated branches of braucherei and Powwow.

In addition, numerous Christian motifs made their way into the fabric of witch-lore at large. Many traditions call for a prospective witch to revoke their baptism, sometimes speaking the Lord's Prayer backwards as a part of the process or in addition to that. The devil at the crossroads isn't necessarily the same devil from the Bible, but sometimes he can be. The two are inseparable.

A newcomer to the field of folkloric witchcraft may think, "How can this be? Don't witches and Christians stand in opposition to each other?"

As far as I can tell, this aversion to Christianity is a very modern thing. In Early Modern times, the idea of Christianity being a singular worldview out of many would have been practically nonexistent. One's worldview would have already been Christian, and the Bible would have been the tool par excellence to compel-- the ultimate symbol of a higher power.

I can only speak to my own experience, but I personally haven't seen any problems with mixing elements of the two ideologies. When you use the name of a god or a spirit (or whatever) in a spell, all you're doing is plugging into an existing power source. You're saying that the spell will work and be effective as long as that name has power behind it, whether you "believe" it or not. Using a psalm for my style of witchery is often more than enough to hotwire it into doing what I want.

I also invert the Lord's Prayer on a semi-regular basis. I wasn't raised with any religion in particular, but some of my family are very Christian, so I revoked my baptism anyway, because I like to have all my bases covered. (Think of the story of Jonas Dodson, from The Silver Bullet-- he had to do multiple revocations and a ton of waiting because he had ministers in his family.) There is power to be had from the inversion by itself, but I like to think of it as a firm but friendly reminder to God that I'm spoken for.

The main reason I use Christian elements in my practice, though, is that it works. It works really well. Like I said, it has power because people have been doing it for ages. The Bible, to me, is a toolset. You use it to do what you will, and don't pay attention to the baggage it carries along with it. If I feel that the Powers That Be are breathing down my neck a little too much, I know how to get rid of them.

Plus, heresy feels good. Blasphemy feels good. I live in the United States, and Christian fundamentalism, evangelicalism and general dickishness on the basis of religion are running rampant-- especially in the national government, but on the local level as well. There's a church in my general vicinity; I looked at their website and they believe some pretty discriminatory things. This is just another act of rebellion against that.

That's how it works for me. It won't be the same for everyone. Just like with any current of power, it's not really possible to generalize how to interact with it. It's all going to depend on the user. You don't have to use it, of course, but it's worth looking into, if only to understand how people use it and how to respect it as such.

[magic-study]

[magic-study]

I would love to see what you come up with!!!

Personally, I draw my cards (sometimes physically, sometimes with an app for the same deck; I feel like I have a good enough relationship with the deck that it doesn't matter if I use a digital version) and interpret first, then I ask Meg what she thinks of it. I don't see it as any different from asking another person for their opinion. This way, I get the initial intuition and another perspective that I may not have considered.

This might sound harsh but if you use AI to read tarot don’t consider yourself a tarot reader. Please use your own brain, It’s gotten alarmingly bad how y’all use robots for everything. The basis of tarot is to use your own intuition and understanding of the cards. The cards meanings also vary from reader to reader. It’s borderline pathetic to ask artificial intelligence what the spread you just pulled means and write down the exact answer it gives you for pacs on tumblr or wherever else because you can’t figure it out yourself. I’m sorry, but It’s embarrassing. There’s so many possibilities and so many messages to interpret when you read that a robot cannot catch. That’s the beauty in tarot!! You clearly don’t care for it if you use AI, if you’re gonna use it regardless at least be honest about it and don’t pretend you interpreted that by yourself. It’s ridiculous.

[magic-study]

every politician who claims israel has a right to 'defend itself', every celebrity who reposts israel-sympathetic statements, every hand-wringing liberal who refuses to take a stance because 'it's just too complex', every zionist who fearmongers about this turning into a second holocaust, every western journalist who insists on asking their palestinian guests "but do you condemn hamas?" — in fact any person who wants to comment on the situation at all should be forced to read this article in full before they're allowed to voice their opinion.

at the end of the article, there is a 338-page list of the names of the palestinians who have been killed by israeli forces from october 7th-25th. the first six pages are for the age '0'.