#types of spells

[starseededhippie]

[mamamoon92]

🖤✨

[aspelladay]

Necromancy

Technically necromancy is divination system that exploits the special powers of the dead. It has come to encompass contacting the dead by various means to extract information, about the future or otherwise. Necromancy is a word frequently misused and misunderstood: it’s been used as a catch-all label for any sort of cemetery desecration. Although desecration may occur in the name of communication (and one person’s ritual is another person’s desecration), vandalism and desecration for its own sake or for destructive purposes is not necromancy under any definition, and there are many methods of contact and speaking with dead souls that do not involve a trip to the graveyard, nor require any contact with a corpse at all.

Necromancy exists because the end of life doesn’t necessarily end the need for one person to talk to another. Necromancy also exists because some metaphysical systems believe that dead souls are the only ones privy to certain information and able to share that information in a lucid manner with the living.

Because it’s believed that the dead are no longer bound by the limitations of the mortal physical realm, they are able to foresee events, understand the past and be either persuaded or compelled to reveal these details. Necromancy may be used to reveal the future or to gain understanding of a past or current situation.

Two kinds of souls may be summoned:

Those with ties of love and loyalty to you, who are probably inclined to be helpful

Those who must be compelled to appear and provide assistance

Different methods of summoning exist for different souls. Whether there must be contact with the corpse depends upon the method chosen.

The ancient Greeks believed that the recently deceased were more coherent than those who had been dead for a while. In essence, the long-deceased are out of practice. The longer one has been dead, the further away from the land of the living one has drifted. It becomes harder for the living to understand the dead and likewise for the dead to comprehend the living person’s needs, desires, and even language. Hence, the Greeks’ inclination to use fresh corpses in necromantic ritual.

Of course, all of this depends upon whether you believe that love, loyalty, and consciousness transcend death. For some cultures, all semblance of human feelings and memory immediately ceases at death, therefore there can be nothing benevolent about contacting the dead. Any contact with the dead is thus, by definition, malevolent sorcery.

The most famous modern necromantic device is the ouija board, available at toy stores amongst the board games, and its relative, the planchette. This begs another point of consideration. Some philosophies consider that wisdom and foresight are acquired during the death process. Others believe that nature and intelligence after death remains what it was during life. In other words, if Aunt Sophie never gave you good advice while she was alive, what makes you think she’ll do any better now that she’s dead?

Be cautious whose advice is relied upon, whether it derives from living sources or those beyond the grave. The ouija board is considered something of a portal to the next realm: an open telephone line, as it were. Consider who speaks with you before continuing and maintaining any conversations.

These are all remnants of shamanic rites, out of context. When shamans are banished, people attempt to do needed jobs themselves, as best as they are able, whether or not they have been extensively trained.

Necromancy should be preceded by intensive cleansing and protective spells. Fasting probably wouldn’t hurt and may make the process more successful to boot. Wear or carry protective amulets and charms.

(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)

[ranseur]

actual scene as it happened in the show

[caffeine-and-computers]

being a writer is spelling disembowelment correctly on the first try but somehow always screwing up definitliely

[actual-changeling]

i feel like all my meta posts just clicked and solved a puzzle in my brain. however i am also currently upping my sleep med dosage so if any of this sounds like the incoherent rambles of a mad man it's cause i am. incoherent and insane and rambling that is. (not a man)

but i have to write this post since i had a lightbulb realization moment.

because the thing is, besties, that aziraphale is a fucking horrible liar. he gets nervous and fidgety, he stutters, you can SEE him sweating anxiety. just look at him in the bookshop when the archangels inquire about their not-so-little 25 lazarii miracle.

his best "lies" are when he is actually telling the truth but twisted. he has never been a good liar (see job) and that has not changed in six thousand years. all smiles directed at archangels are visibly wrong, his discomfort is tangible.

whenever he panics it is written across his face clear as day, including, and this is the important bit, when he is talking to the metatron.

now, you are wondering why exactly that matters, and the point is something we have all talked and thought about for ages but my brain just. formed some new neural pathways.

because he is a terrible liar, he is horrible at hiding his emotions.

but you know who isn't?

crowley.

unless you know him, it is very hard to read his facial expressions with his glasses on. he can turn his emotions "off", he can put a wall in front of them and by extension around himself.

i talked about it more in this post, so for background info have a look at it (if you want to)

it's crowley's thing yet there is one moment, one, glorious moment in which aziraphale executes it perfectly. and that moment mirrors crowley putting on his glasses, it is aziraphale attempting to hide away all of his feelings and thoughts so no one can tell what he is really thinking.

the parallels besties. the fucking parallels.

what really sells it to me is that last comparison because it matches too well to not be intentional. honestly, after the sink story i think every little thing in this show is done on purpose and with attention to detail, so.

the empty look, the heartbreak, the pain - the realization. this is it. i am not walking away from this unharmed but i am walking away. or rather into the loneliness, the absence of the person i love.

for aziraphale also the realization that the world is about the get fucked and he is not.

after that we have the inhale of courage. taking a deep breath to calm yourself, to find your way back to your body. a kind of preparation we have all done at one point or another.

the mask slides into place. or at least you want it to slide into place, you are trying to fucking jam it into the spot you need it to be but sometimes it's like trying to push the square peg through the round hole.

it's a disconnect, it's putting up a physical and emotional wall. crowley does it to hide away from aziraphale.

aziraphale does it hide from heaven and the metatron, yes, but he does it to hide from himself. at his core, aziraphale compartmentalizes. he is so fucking good at cognitive dissonance it's scary, and that's what happens here.

he knows, he KNOWS, that he needs to lock up his feelings or he won't be able to get into that fucking lift and do what he thinks he needs to do.

and so he walks away from crowley just like crowley walked away from him, copying him and doing exactly what he has seen him do a thousand times: putting up wall after wall after wall. ripping out every sprout of vulnerability before it can bloom.

except that he stopped doing it after the no-pocalypse, and that is why it hurts so fucking badly when he puts his glasses back on.

he is not ripping out a sprout, he is uprooting an entire fucking tree

aziraphale cannot hide behind sunglasses by crowley so he hides underneath an angelic persona, the person he thinks he should be, needs to be, and the problem is that whenever he slips into that role, it becomes him.

getting crowley to take off his glasses again is going to be a herculean task and the same goes for getting aziraphale to drop his act. they're one and the same in shape and origin and purpose but they are not indestructible.

because listen. all of this is painful and it hurts. it really is.

the fun part, however, is the fact that we know exactly what it takes to destroy that barrier, we have seen it happen to crowley before.

my point is that we are missing the parallel for said destruction.

[strixcattus]

Hey, Google Docs? I'm off by one letter. I'm off by one doubled letter. I get it, you're AI-fried right now, but you have to be able to recognize when a single letter, from a doubled letter, is missing from a word, right? You have to know the word 'millennium,' right?

[the-holy-ghosted]

congrats 2 henry peglar for being the only bitch confirmed as to be Fucking That Old Man

[worldsewage]

[manofbeskar]

[whaliiwatching]

Hey hello. Consider. Hobie reading over and suggesting edits to drafts of Peter's writing and then going home visually with clippings and quotes from said writing as a part of him. Alternately, Peter takes inspiration from quotes visible on Hobie

heart on your sleeve…..

[sampilled]

I think the reason I hate the “dean raised Sam” idea in fandom is because that is just fundamentally not how I view their relationship and ALSO because of how one sided it makes it

Like you know who looks out for dean? Sam. You know who cares whether dean is being safe or throwing himself head first into danger? Sam. You know who worries about dean’s cholesterol and whether he eats his vegetables? SAM

And if you think this is a new development then you just don’t understand teenaged sam like I do. Sam ‘I will burn this whole building to the ground just to make a point’ Winchester. Sam ‘I hate my dad’ Winchester. Sam ‘No sir there are more important things’ Winchester.

Sam was the type of kid to make a whole PowerPoint about the dangers of smoking if he ever saw dean even look at one!!!

And who does dean go to when he has a crisis? Sam!!! That’s literally the main premise of the show. Dean goes to sam when john abandons him

Whose name does dean yell out when he’s trapped in hell in the season 3 finale? Sam’s!!!

Sam is his safe space. The number one person he can trust. The person who always tries to get him to open up about his feelings (even if he’s not the *most* equipped to handle those conversations. He always tries)

I just hate when people try to make it seem like Sam is a burden to dean or just an accessory to dean’s trauma cus at the end of the day that codependency goes *both* ways

[paddysbarbie]

obsessed with whatever this is that mac does every time he disagrees with someone

[aspelladay]

Alphabet Divination Spells

Books are formed from words; words are formed from letters. One school of Kabbalah suggests that the Creator formed the entire world from Hebrew letters. Individual letters, of any alphabet, may be used to provide an oracle.

(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)

[callmekitto]

I'm apparently just a bloodweave brain worms guy now

but OK, a lot of us have seen the idea exploring "Gale is using a glamor spell to give him the dehydrated pack of Hawaiian rolls abs we see in-game"

so picture Gale eventually dropping the glamor and everyone either doesn't say anything because it isn't their business, they straight up don't care, or they are quietly supportive/happy for him

but then Astarion finds out, sees his de-glamored, softer body, and he is pissed

"We have a half a dozen things want to kill us at any given moment, and you were using your energy on a glamor spell? When you look like that? I didn't think you were that particular brand of idiot."

To which Gale is Massively Offended because EXCUSE you, and they end up snapping at each other and getting in an argument

("--none of your business what I do with--" "Oh, on the CONTRARY. Unless that's a cantrip, and I'm godsdamned sure it isn't, I'd say your waste of our resources to survive are one hundred percent my business--")

and then later Gale is in his tent fuming remembering the argument but then goes. Wait a Fucking Second

[elizaisdunn]

season five of TMA? oh you mean the one where the Eye third wheels jmart as they take a lovely stroll through the apocalyptic hellscape that is england