How to Become a Witch by Amber K. (large ebook reader txt) 📗

her home, or helping children fall asleep at bedtime.

The Nature Magician works outdoors, using the energies of sun and wind and rain, working with animal allies or plant devas, using a stick or a rock as tools. His magick is often used to attune with nature and know the Goddess and the God as expressed in nature.

The Shamanic Magician works with nature but also ventures more deeply into the spirit realms through journeys, trancework, shapeshifting, and the like, to heal people and perform soul retrievals and other magick that requires a trance state. She has a few specialized tools such as drums and rattles.

The Simple Ritualist does ritual with a formal outline at particular times or seasons, with an array of specialized ritual tools and with the aim of celebration or self-transformation. This describes what most covens do.

The Ceremonial Magician takes ritual to a deeper and more complex level. He is known for his costumes, highly decorated ritual tools, use of symbolism and correspondences, and formal language, degrees, and titles, but more importantly, he is almost entirely focused on theurgy.

The Intrinsic, or Inner, Magician works only with her mind and body, using will and imagination to manipulate energy. Because she requires no robes, altar, props, or tools, it looks more like simple chanting, yoga, or silent meditation than magick. It is powerful and transformative nonetheless.

Just reading these brief descriptions, you probably feel more attracted to one style or another. Experimentation and practice will reveal which style works best for you. Write your experiences in your Book of Shadows.

Spellcraft

A spell is generally defined as a word or phrase supposed to have magick power, such as a charm or incantation. To most Witches, it is any magickal operation and may or may not involve words. Simply imagining a desired outcome could almost be considered a spell; if you intentionally put additional energy into that image, it would definitely be one.

Amulet vs. talisman

Many people say that the difference between an amulet and a talisman is that an amulet is sacred or powerful because of what it is (a holey stone or a crystal, for instance), while a talisman is sacred or powerful because of what has been done with it (like inscribing a pentagram on an otherwise inert piece of silver). Others say that amulets are for protection, while talismans draw a particular planetary energy to the maker.

Spells always involve imagination, will, energy, and action, but the forms and materials are limitless. Spells can be constructed with images, symbolic actions, songs, chants, poems, prayers, affirmations, incense, candles, poppets (dolls that represent individuals—with their permission), cords, stones and crystals, potions, elixirs, drums or other instruments, wands, athames, tarot cards, fire, runestones, amulets, talismans, and a host of other witchy paraphernalia.

Herbs in witches’ potions

In the play Macbeth, the three crones add “eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog” to their potion. Why would anyone boil up such unappetizing ingredients?

Long ago, most herbs had interesting folk names. “Eye of newt” was a common name for mustard seed, and “tongue of dog” was otherwise called hound’s-tongue; “toe of frog” could have meant bulbous buttercup leaves.

Healing herbs were used by the wise women and cunning men of the villages. This knowledge was known as wortcunning, meaning “plant knowledge.” Many modern Witches still study plant lore and use herbs.

Want to do a magickal spell? Okay, here’s your first one. Imagine something you need—nothing that could harm another, of course (besides, you don’t need your friend’s very cool sports car, you just want one like it). Let’s say you need some money and plan to use it for legitimate purposes, like paying your debts or saving toward a new home.

Take a deep breath. Say aloud, “Gods and goddesses of prosperity, I call upon you. Grant that financial wealth may flow to me, X thousand dollars or more; may it be with harm toward none and for the greatest good of all.” Now imagine the feeling you will have when the money arrives. Inhale deeply, and as the air flows into your lungs, pour energy into that image of a delighted and prosperous you, and make the image brighter and larger and more detailed. Inhale twice more, and charge the image again each time. Now send the image out into the world, and say, “So mote it be” (witchy for “So it must be”).

That’s a spell. Will it work? Yes. Could it be more powerful and effective in any way? Oh, yes! There are a hundred ways to make it stronger: preface it by giving a tithe to a good cause, do the spell on a Sunday at noon, raise more power by drumming, make and charge a talisman with a wealth bind-rune on it, light some golden candles, visualize and name specific deities such as Lakshmi and Fortuna...and much, much more.

Then act in accord: take practical action that will support the spell on the material plane. You’ve heard the joke about the person who pleads with God to let them win the lottery but forgets to buy a ticket? Well, do your money spell, but then act: ask for a pay raise from your boss, invest intelligently in a new business, rent out your spare bedroom—whatever your divination or intuition tells you might work.

Bellarmine jars

Bellarmine jars (or “Beardman jugs”) are salt-glazed, stoneware bottles created in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. They have a fierce bearded face molded on the side. It supposedly depicted Cardinal Bellarmine, a well-known church leader, but the face was actually the Old God, Woden.

These bottles were sometimes used for magick, either protective or baneful. They were filled with such things as bent pins, rusty nails, and human urine, then buried under porches and gates. They could serve as traps for evil spirits, or possibly as curses on someone’s enemies.

Since most modern Witches never do curses, the bottles are rarely used today.

While a spell can certainly be