I personally disagree with using grounding as a self-control technique, because itās about dispersing in a concentrated way. Meaning that usually people have a quiet place or a quiet time to really spend time working on a meditative state. Iād argue that grounding is a specific magical act and itās less about doing something actively and more about releasing and reducing how you are interacting.
Now I donāt know the ask that created this spell, so itās entirely possible that grounding was a good recommendation. But in general, I donāt use grounding in my practice because itās antithetical to what I am usually trying to do (which is to pull up and harness things, not put them down). I will do it when asked (usually making the spell casting we are doing weaker and me less interested in spell casting with you later. :D) but otherwise itās not a technique that I would go to when thinking about control. Itās fundamentally a lack of control or giving up control in my mind, which is good, but ā¦ as you can see why I would disagree with it for this particular piece.
We have a very similar spell to the previous projectās day spell where we have a sigil and we have a rock and we are going to enchant something to do a purpose. Itās very thematically similar in technique.
But what we are doing differently here which is important to contrast is actually activating the sigil in a way completely differently than the previous spell. So in the previous one we are using a grid structure to funnel and transfer through to the rock. In this, we are actively interacting with the sigil and then we are burning it to begin itās process and then taking the ashes of it and mixing it with another piece to create black salt.
Now I donāt use black salt either in my practice (and I rarely use salt), so this is the time and place for folks to have a look at some. Now of course, this is different from the black salt you can find for cooking. So this may be something a little bit harder for you to work with. I would recommend making a very little amount if you arenāt used to making it.
The main problem here for me is a lack of clear directions beginning in Step four with combining our ingredients into a bowl. Like we had a lot of instruction in the steps in making the black salt, but thatās where that kind of stops. What is the black salt doing for us and the charm. Is it the bed that the item is sitting on? Is it meant for purification purposes or decontamination purposes or other activation purposes? How do we pull from the black salt we just made and apply it to the charm we are building now?
So the talisman charm is supposed to be the seat of this spell, right? So naturally for me, I would want to shift this from just a regularly worn object to an object that can store the black salt. I know the intent to have a piece of jewelry you regularly wear as the anchor for the spell. I have no issues with regular wear and yes I understand that some people associate a long lived / long worn object with basically being filled with your specific energy or your specific signature.
Ultimately, this is why for me I would have skipped the black salt step or used it different. The salt is just a carrier for the sigil, right? So hereās where I would have made this different.
I would have either taken the sigil and written it in water on a plate using a brush and then taken the sigil water and activated that and then placed the object in it to absorb the water. OR I would have water marked directly on the object itself. Another way if you still want the black salt, you could dissolve the black salt into a little bit of water and do the same application.
By the way, if you didnāt like the sigil or you in general dislike sigil magic. You can use visual poetry or written word to do the same thing. You donāt have to be limited to a sigil you donāt prefer. So if you wanted self control you could literally just put the word āself-controlā and activate it in the same way as the above space.
Basically I would actively take the tool thatās carrying the sigil and directly apply to the forehead. I mean directly apply to the object I am enchanting. I would not let it passively absorb because thatās not how I rock things. The same thing could be said about the crystal which has not been activated.
And I can understand that potentially the black salt is actually the bridge between the crystal and the object. In the same way the sigil from last time was the bridge between the the candles and the object as a grid. But this is not really explained in the instructions how to build the bridge into the salt. This seems like this is just āput it next to this crystal and thatās how it worksā - which needs just a little more instruction for folks who are just getting into spellwork to understand how that actually functions. Itās the same with the moon charge for three nights. Let me come back to this a bit later.
Now if you wanted to make again, a docking station, this is different. You could again hold back some of that black salt and put it in a container / baggie and put the jewelry in that or in a little jewelry dish and just kind of have the piece sitting there if you want. But again I would have wanted some really strong interact between this thing that we really charge up, and the place where the spell will live.
Because otherwise you might just be having a dish in your house thatās very empowered for self-control that does absolutely nothing for you on your day to day when you have left itās vicinity.
I feel like I have had a lot to say about passive charms this time around. I promise they have a use, I just donāt think a self control spell is one of the few you just want sitting around in your home while you are out and about doing things.
So letās talk about the charging thing, to explain for folks, in this case Moon charging (and crystal charging I guess) works because of the passive nature of that type of charge. Itās basically āaroundā the thing we are charging, so this thing we are charging is empty and we are filling it by leaving this item in itās presence. Itās the same thing with the jewelry being well worn and it having your signature on it. Itās now been in the presence of something and itās got itās ā¦ you knowā¦ stink on it or it becomes kind of apart of that thing.
Itās basically saying the longer you have something near something else, the more those two things become āthe sameā and usually the stronger presence or the intentional putting something near the something else causes that things to become overwritten. So then youāre asking probably now, āwell if Iām using a jewelry that I wear a lot that has *my* signature, and Iām putting it near other things, wonāt that rewrite the signature?ā
Yes and no. But mostly yes. I think this well worn status is just to make it so you want to wear it more often.
Iāll be honest though, when something has overwritten my signatured items, I tend not to wear them.
*looks at smudged ink hand* something something ā¦ thatās not mine anymore.
But this could be just a user error on my part, so I think itās ultimately up to you. Iāve also had things Iāve enchanted that I wore a lot and put some magic on immediately break. Again, user error.
So thatās why my immediate first reaction is to build a completely new container. One which I could have some of the sand, maybe some of the rock chips if possible, and then potentially some other items inserted as well if you want extra items beyond this. There are like mini glass bottles you could use. Or you could build a keychain. You could even wrap a small glass bottle in fabric or braid yarn around it for extra protection and most importantly concealment.
I think the chant is fine, I just donāt like speaking in languages Iām not familiar with enough to speak it confidently. This is the second spell I looked at that had a language that I do not speak. I donāt recommend it personally because you can flub a pronunciation and change a meaning based on what you said.
I do like waking a talisman up though and being like, hey buddy yo job - as you recall - is thus. So do it. It makes me feel like we are on the right track with actively interacting with our newly created item. So I do like that really active part of this particular spell, so I would say it is not an optional thing.
But then again sometimes my talismans become spirits in their own rights because I am interacting with them at this level. SO buyer, spell caster, beware. If youāre not ready to have a semi-living spellwork spirit, donāt do this the way I would.
I also love the fact we talk about what happens if the spell wanes, just repeat it. Itās confident and itās also expressing the really strong need to be monitoring your spellwork. I really enjoy that addition here because it makes me feel more confident in general with the casting and to be able to recommend it to others. A lot of times people think they only need to cast a spell once. OR worse, that they can only cast a spell once in their lifetime and that they need to go find a different spell to cast again.
I am repeat spell caster, so I will cast the same spell multiple times for different situations or for the same situation.
So really like that being added here to this piece.
All in all, I would do some things differently, but itās nice to compare and contrast this between the other kind of spell we reviewed yesterday. Also I am pretty sure someoneās gonna be up in here arguing with me about grounding.
You can like grounding all you want - it doesnāt mean that itās the go to for everyone. Okay? Okay.
