#school of roses

[school-of-roses]

✶*✧Introduction to Spell Sealing✧*✶

Everything must come to an end.

This is an area of spellcraft that doesn’t get a lot of publicity because for most people it just becomes a natural part of the process.  However, if you want to mix up how you do it, try something new, or otherwise let go of the way you were originally taught, this might be a good resource for performing rituals!

What are Sealed Spells?

In the context of magic you usually hear about sealing and binding like binding a person or something from being able to do something.  Here we're talking more like a binding contract.  This is a binding or seal locks in an action or intent.  It is binding in the way an agreement is binding.  You have given it firm parameters that it must follow and you have endeavored to finalize the action.  You have provided certainty, locked in your answer, sealed the deal.  

The benefits of this are inherent in the finality.  You have a set thing that now is much harder to alter and is much harder to waver in its purpose.  This is no longer some multi-purpose object.  It has varitably been christened for this and this alone.  The work to undo it will be just as rigorous as the work to do it in the first place.  A light cleansing of your materials afterwards might not be enough.  You're gonna need the spiritual bleach.

To some extent you might just feel that something needs to be finalized.  If you feel it in your gut like you need something to formally end the working, these are what you might be looking for.

More Common Than You Think

This might be more familiar to you than you would initially think.  Signing your name on something at the end is a common one, but even in a ritual sphere there are many examples.  This is going to be your “so mote it be”, your “Amen”, and your other declarations of finality.  Even purely secular situations often have rituals of finality.  I think you’ll find that when these things are left out, there is sometimes a feeling of the energy hanging in the air.  In a lot of ways it does not feel right.  Whether this is the social convention of signaling to everything and everyone present that the ritual has come to a conclusion, or just to announce you’re finished, there is some power to it.

Types of Seals

There are several different ways to express finality in your workings.  Here are just a few examples.

Shutting the Door and Sealing the Envelope

If your work involves some kind of lid or package, you can physically seal it.  Whether this is corking a jar, sealing with wax, tying a string around something etc.  If this is a possibility it is a good way to finalize a spell.

Written and Spoken Seals

Whether this is through signing something like you might finalize a formal contract or expressing that it is finalized verbally.  A few examples of this are listed above that you may have heard before, but there is really nothing stopping you from making your own.

Kiss Seals

Sealing with a kiss.  Kissing something to finalize has historical precedent and takes no extra tools to complete besides your lips.  Whether this is physically using your lips or the other means, this is one option for a quick seal.  Just don’t kiss poison.

Burning, Burying, and Bestrewing

Few things are more final than destruction.  Once you’ve set the flame, you’ve pretty much confined what you’ve set on fire to that purpose forever.  Burying something in the ground would be another example of this.  Whether you feel the finality is from returning it to the earth, or because you are sealing it in a tomb of soul, this will certainly signal that it is done.  Some feel like things are not complete until they’ve scattered the ashes, in which case throwing something to the wind could be your version of finality.

Whether this is through signing something like you might finalize a formal contract or expressing that it is finalized verbally.  A few examples of this are listed above that you may have heard before, but there is really nothing stopping you from making your own.

Sigil Seals

An extension of the written or spoken seals are sigil seals.  It accomplishes much the same thing, but can be a little more formal.  Some might think this is kind of a stretch, but wax seals, like what might go on a letter, could fall into this category, technically.

[harmonizingsunsets]

Running Gags in Hatchetfield Musicals pt 10 | Fake Musicals within a Musical

[amelia-yap]

guys v10 leak

[allroseshave-their-pricks]

My roommates keep stealing my tools because they don't have any, so I'm curious

[pizza-with-death-blog]

9 fell in love with life again because of Rose. Then on Satellite 5 he thought he saw her die before his eyes, got her back, then almost watched her burn from the inside out because she loved him enough to sacrifice her life for him. He then died for her.

Of COURSE Ten is afraid of love, and specifically loving Rose. He's held what he thought was her ashes in his hand, and his whole existence he's known that one day he might lead her to her death for real.

Nine fell in love with his pink and yellow human.

Ten was born in love with her, and that terrified him.

[dailybetakidz]

[id: four middle school ids for john, rose, dave and jade. john and dave both go to local public middle schools with relatively uninspired card designs. john leans forward grinning in his picture, and dave looks at the photographer, bored. his sunglasses are pushed up off his face. rose attends a catholic girl's school and smiles maliciously, hair straightened. she wears a uniform and dark makeup. jade's id card is fabricated, written in her own handwriting and covered in doodles and stickers. she attends a so-called prospit middle school. they are all in grade 7. end id]

blarh

[pancakemolybdenum]

happy cascade day!!!!

[missnotstarry]

[crrows]

Yuki, Ue, and Kazuna; Harajuku, October 2004

[vintage-tigre]

Rose McGowan, 1998

[school-of-roses]

✽✾Why We Don’t Use Magic with a K✾✽

A case against Magic[k].

The version of the word has been popularized by a terrible racist, and if that is a good enough reason for you not to want to use it then feel free to stop here.  However if you're interested in learning more about the wider context, here is a short history.

Agrippa

Agrippa is cited as being the author of the first occult book where magic is spelled with a k at the end.  There is a 1600s translation where someone used that specific spelling, and there is no denying that it is technically used. However, those that point to this in order to justify its use now seem like they just don't want to change.  When the document had been written, English had not been codified, and many other spellings of magic (magik, magyk, magique) are also floating around during this time. These do not nearly get the same defense.

The word would not return to the occult community for nearly four hundred years between the book's English translation and the popularization of magic[k].

Aleister Crowley  The real meat and potatoes of why we don't use the word magic[k], is that it was popularized by a man by the name of Aleister Crowley. The quotes from Crowley that demonstrate his character are actually so terrible that for common decency, and the safety of my account, I'm not quoting them here.  They are not too terribly hard to find, and you'll hardly find a soul denying they exist. He wanted to differentiate from stage magic (elaborated on more below).  However, even at the time no one was having trouble telling the difference [see generally: historians at the time, anthropologists, and other practitioners], so Crowley justified it in other ways.  In his mind he wanted magic to have six letters.  He liked hexagrams a lot.  The number six was significant for him.  Thus, giving magic six letters was his mark on the word itself.

He left a nearly irreparable scar on modern occultism both being the progenitor to things like Wicca, and the writer of his own system based on the teachings of the Golden Dawn, Thelema.  Not only are a lot of these systems often more than dipping their toes in, but prone to soaking their whole feet in appropriation and bigotry if the practitioner isn't careful, they were often based on the writings of a lot of people who were wholesale racists/ antisemites. The work that goes into removing the bigotry from these systems, and occultism/ modern practice at large, is often substantial, and this is a step we've chosen to continue doing so. Namely, by removing Crowley's personal influence where we can.

Stage Magic argument

There is an argument that magic[k] as a spelling is necessary to differentiate from stage magic. (Or in some cases differentiate between witchcraft and Magic the Gathering.)  I've personally seen this argument a lot, but have not personally encountered a situation where it was necessary.  There are far too many, in my mind anyway, easy swaps (witchcraft, energy work, etc.).  There has also been no evidence I've found of this ever being the true intentions of the word's use.  Especially since if that were the case, they probably should've also changed the objectively more confusing turn of calling themselves "magicians", or of the word "magical".

Circling Back

Coming back around to why we don't use it today, we find the reasons above to be compelling, and beyond that we strive for above and beyond sourcing, care, and respect for our minority members.  If we can push magic in a direction that has more easily accessible information and less of the past's notions that are often founded in bigotry, we are going to. More often than not, that means trying to remove Crowley’s mark on everything. While some might seek to reclaim it, we've chosen to let it fade.

[eggwishing]

short & stout rose And awkward and gangly dave >>>> i think rose would move with a ferocity like she could accidwntally bump her elbow onto the corner of a table and the table would crumble . dave posture’d be so rigid that he’d fall like a tree and shatter like glass from a light breeze

[amelia-yap]

QUACK

[lichdolly]

Innocent World - Rose Pattern JSK with Cape (2001)

[9nette]

So here it’s a Mairuma x Sonic collection cuz I started watching sonic and wow. It’s so cool !!

Also I haven’t draw mairuma things related recently, my fault.

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡