GoblinQueen

It’s important to look at the meanings of tarot cards, but it’s very possible to pull even more out of a reading that individual card meanings. Here’s some other stuff you might consider bringing into your interpretation when it feels right:

🍄The position of the cards. This is why spread design can be so important! I’ve had instances where all the cards, in their positions, had the subjects looking or pointing towards one specific card. It was wild. What did it mean? Maybe nothing, but maybe something very significant, depending on the question!

🍄The visual element of the cards. Sometimes what’s depicted on the card can give more specific insight than the actual book meanings. The pictures were done that way for a reason, so don’t be afraid to give them their own weight! Also, sometimes the spread as a whole will have a flow of design (like when one half is much brighter than the other) or a specific card is WAY more colorful than the other cards on the table. Any of these could potentially carry meaning.

🍄Jumper cards. This is when a card pops out while you’re shuffling! I usually just put them back… UNLESS the question has already been presented, and I’m shuffling with that question in mind. Then, I keep them as extra advice, bonus cards.

🍄Reoccurring numbers. Maybe you do a four card spread for a friend, and you get the four of cups, four of swords, four of wands, and the Emperor! (IV.) What does that mean? What does the number four symbolize? Well, a lot of things, potentially, depending on what you study. Some tarot designs incorporate the Kabbalah’s numbered paths in the tree of life, others go with numerology. Maybe, the number four just means something special to you or the querent in particular.

🍄A bunch of cards in order. I’m not talking about when you forget to shuffle. I’m talking about when you give it a really good shuffle and you still get the ace, two, and three of Pentacles all in a row. This can be seen as a sign of progression, or that the events are all much more closely connected than anticipated. It can also mean it happens over a shorter period of time than normal. It’s up to you, your cards, and the contexts.

🍄Proportions of different features. Maybe you’re doing an obstacle spread, and your obstacle is something like the nine of swords. That’s pretty nasty, but if all the other cards in the spread are Major Arcana, then it’s probably not going to be that difficult to surmount. The reverse can also be true. Additionally, a high number of reversed cards in a spread typically signifies a lot of confusion, conflict, and turmoil.

🍄Reoccurring symbols. Beyond just the four suits, because that’s a given! But maybe your spread shows a lot of cards with images of fire, people dancing, or birds. Do these mean anything to you or the querent? What do they typically symbolize?

🍄Any hiccups or unusual events during the reading. Once I had a querent pick up a card to examine it, drop it, then pick it up and put it back reversed. Since it was the overall outcome card, I interpreted that as a heightened ability to change her own fate in this given situation, since she had turned the card from quite a bad omen to a good one. Sometimes little accidents like dropping cards, accidentally shifting them, or laying out the spread wrong are meant to be there and add to the meaning!

I hope this gives you some ideas! Feel free to add more. What do you interpret alongside the cards in a reading?

Whenever we’re encountering a new spirit we’re thinking of working with, asking the right questions is important. Here’s a list of potential questions to ask that can be useful in figuring out their vibe and if they have a place in your practice.

What is your name/what can I call you?

Is there a name in my language for the type of being you are?

What do/would you want from me?

How do you sustain yourself? (aka, what do you “eat?”) 

What are you looking to gain/do/achieve? Short or long term.

What do you think of humans?

Do you agree to respect any boundaries I set?

Would you like or require offerings from me?

If so, what kinds of offerings do you like to receive?

What are your favorite colors/smells/foods/sounds/etc.?

Do you plan on staying around a long time or would any arrangement be temporary?

Do you have any other loyalties? With whom? (It’s not always bad if they do, but it’s important to know.) 

Is there anything you dislike or are afraid of?

What signs might you show me to let me know you’re there?

Do you have/want an anchor? What kind?

Do you have any particular talents? 

Especially on witchy discord, it’s really not hard to find servers offering free classes, lectures, etc. all being developed within a tiny community. Which is great! Unless the speakers and teachers are underqualified. A lot of us want to jump into an educators role really quickly, and that’s very admirable! But we don’t want to contribute to the spread of misinformation and make it harder for students to find really in-depth information.

Signs you are ready to teach:

You’ve known the material for a long time. A teacher should have extended experience with the material they’re teaching. A few months isn’t that long. A year maybe, if you’re only teaching the most surface level intro.

You’re knowledgable in theory AND in practice. Both are extremely important. If you’re teaching somebody to ultimately do a thing, you should have done it yourself. Would you take cooking classes from someone who has read a lot of cookbooks but never made anything in them?

You pull from a wide range of sources. Where are you getting your information from? Best case scenario, you can offer your students a mix of books, hands-on experience, testimonies and tips from other practitioners, academic articles, and other classes/lectures/workshops. Worst case scenario, the only source is tumblr, or your own UPG.

You’ve studied more than just what you use regularly. Your students WILL ask you questions you aren’t prepared for. They will pull in comparisons from paths you don’t follow, and ask simple-sounding questions with complicated answers. I’d say you should know at least 110٪ of what you’re prepared to teach, to account for this and not hit a wall the second you go off script.

You know how to teach it in different ways. There are many different types of learners. One must be ready to tailor the lesson to all of them.

You can handle the responsibility. Teaching is a big deal! Especially mentorship (in which case multiply everything I’ve said by five or more.) People are relying on you and putting their trust in you. You’re taking an active role in shaping their craft. Are you ready for that? Can you stick with them? Sometimes accidents happen and life hits the fan, but in general don’t sign up for anything you can’t trust yourself to follow through with.

Potential Red Flags:

The teacher is speaking for a group they are not a part of. An outsider’s perspective on something specific to a group may lack nuance at best, and be deeply culturally insensitive at worst. 

They’ve supposedly finished their studies. That isn’t a thing.

They have an agenda. This isn’t always horrible, but it’s important to keep in mind. How might their agenda influence the material they’re teaching you? What might they be leaving out? 

If you’re reading this, good luck will befall you and you will receive some good news within a week’s time.

🏵like to charge🏵

Aw! Thank ya! <3 

The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries is the one I’d suggest the most. A lot of other books pull from it, so its good to read the source.

Other things you can read

The Chronicles of the Sidhe

The works of Fiona Macleod volume IV (free to read)

The Living World of faery

Meeting the Other Crowd

Pagan Portals- Fairy Witchcraft

The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies

Uncrossing is when a person removes a curse, hex, jinx, or other spell that was casted against them which brings them negative energy, bad luck, or catastrophic events. Remember to take care of yourself after performing an uncrossing spell by cleansing and protecting yourself and your home.

If you’ve been following this series of posts, you know why a witch might work with spirits, how to establish a relationship with a spirit, and how to communicate with spirits. What we haven’t yet discussed is how to get rid of spirits that are bothersome, annoying, or malevolent.

I was planning to talk about pathworking and astral travel before getting into banishing, but in light of some asks I recently received on Tumblr, I think it’s important that we take a moment to discuss how to get rid of spirits that, for whatever reason, you don’t want around.

There are lots of reasons you might not want a spirit in your space. Just like with people, some spirits just aren’t a good fit for you and your practice. Part of being a spirit worker is cultivating a “spirit team” of beings that you can have healthy and beneficial relationships with.

Some spirits are mischievous and like to cause trouble. If you find yourself on the receiving end of lots of spirit pranks, you may want to gently encourage them to move along. And there are some spirits out there who just genuinely hate humans and will go out of their way to cause mental, emotional, and even physical harm.

Don’t get me wrong — malevolent spirits aren’t common. In my experience, the vast majority of unwanted spirits are more annoying than dangerous. I’m not saying this to scare you or make you paranoid. But these things do exist, and it would be negligent of me not to mention them in a series on spirit work.

There’s a reason that one of the most common truisms in witchcraft is, “Never conjure something you can’t banish.” If you’re going to be working with spirits, it’s a good idea to know how to banish them just in case. With that being said, here’s how you can clear out any nasties that may be lingering in your space.

Cleansing

The first step is to kick those unwanted spirits out of your space. There are lots of ways to do this, so choose the one that is the best fit for you.

Cleansing with fire and smoke is a very old and very simple method. If this is the way you decide to go, there are several magical substances you can burn to banish spirits. Burning sulfur or asafetida will clear out just about anything, but they both smell awful and are potentially toxic, so you’ll want to get an okay from the other people living in your home, burn a little at a time, and make sure you have lots of windows open. (Some people say sulfur and asafetida will banish all spirits, not just the unfriendly ones, so you may have to invite your spirit team back in later.) For something that smells a little more pleasant, you can try a mix of frankincense and myrrh resin, or burn a mix of dried rosemary, sage (garden sage, not endangered white sage, please!), and bay leaves — but again, make sure you have windows open, because these get smoky. Plus, you want the windows and/or doors open so the spirits have somewhere to go when the smoke chases them out.

If smoking up your living space isn’t an option for you, you can manually clean your space with a wash or powder. If you have hardwoods, you can make a floor wash with water, salt, lemon juice, rosewater, lavender essential oil, and either bay laurel or rosemary essential oil. (This is adapted from an uncrossing bath in the book Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison.) Use this mixture to mop your floors, as well as to wipe down your walls and furniture. If you have a humidifier or essential oil diffuser, diffusing some of this mix would also be a good idea.

If you have carpet, you can make a powder by combining salt, dried lemon peel, dried roses, lavender flowers, and bay leaves. You’ll need to ground this really fine, so I recommend using a coffee grinder or food processor. Sprinkle the powder on your carpet, let it sit for a few minutes, and then vacuum it up. I would supplement this by also diffusing a mix of saltwater with rosewater, lemon juice, and lavender and/or bay laurel essential oil. If you don’t have a diffuser, at least sprinkle some saltwater around the room and on your belongings.

No matter which form of cleansing you decide to use, it’s important to verbally state your intention to banish these unwanted spirits from your space. Tell them out loud that they are no longer welcome here and that they need to leave. Don’t be rude about it, but be firm and speak clearly and with confidence.

After you cleanse your space, it’s a good idea to cleanse yourself as well to remove any psychic ties to the spirits you’ve just banished. The easiest way to do this is with a ritual bath. The floor wash recipe mentioned earlier can also be used as a psychic cleansing bath. Other options include a bath with salt, frankincense, and myrrh or a bath with salt, rosemary, sage, and bay laurel. You can use essential oils for your bath, or add the resins and herbs to a cheesecloth bag and drop it into the tub for easy diffusing and cleanup.

If you don’t have a bathtub, you can cleanse yourself in the shower. Place two cups of salt in a bowl. Add lemon juice, rosewater, lavender essential oil, and either bay laurel or rosemary essential oil. If you don’t have essential oils, you can add dried lavender and crushed bay leaves. Add some of your favorite body wash to create a scrub (if you don’t have body wash, use olive oil). While in the shower, use this mixture to scrub your skin — visualize yourself scrubbing away any psychic gunk you might have picked up.

Protection

Once you’ve removed any unwanted spirits from your space, you want to lay down some protection to keep them from coming back. There are as many ways to ward off spirits as there are witches, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

One option is to create a ward. You can do this by anointing the door frames, door knobs, and window frames of your home with a protective oil blend and/or by creating lines of salt across your doorways and just inside your windows. You can use other protective substances if you prefer. As you lay down these protections, visualize a protective shield around your home, and speak aloud your intention to keep harmful spirits out.

Iron is said to repel spirits. Keep a railroad spike or other large piece of iron under your bed to prevent nightmares and to keep spirits from messing with you while you sleep. There’s an old superstition that says that hammering iron nails into the four corners of your home protects it from spirits — this may not be possible if you’re renting, but you can create a similar effect by displaying a piece of iron in each of the four corners of your home. Hematite is a crystal that is high in iron, so it can be used in a similar way to ward off spirits.

Aloe is said to protect from negative spirits, and to bring protection and good luck more generally. It’s also a common house plant that is easy to care for, so this method of protection is especially great for witches who need to keep their practice a secret. Keep several aloe plants in your home to protect those who live there.

For witches with a crafty side, making a witch bottle is another option for protection. There are lots of different recipes for witch bottles, but the basic method is to fill a bottle with sharp objects, add something from your body, and hide it somewhere outside your home (traditionally buried on the property, but leaving it in an outbuilding works just as well). The idea is that any nasty spirit that comes looking for you will be attracted to the bottle (because it contains part of your body), get caught by the sharp objects, and be trapped. To create a simple witch bottle, fill a mason jar about halfway with sewing pins, then add a bit of your hair and some of your fingernail clippings, and finally fill it with liquid (traditionally, this liquid is your own urine, but if that makes you uncomfortable vinegar will also work). If you want, you can also include some of your favorite banishing herbs, resins, or crystals.

Religious symbols can also keep nasty spirits away. If you identify strongly with a religion, display protective symbols from that faith in your living space. For example: a Christian witch might hang up a crucifix or set out a statue of Archangel Michael, a Norse pagan witch might hang up an image of Mjolnir, a Hindu witch might display a statue of Durga, etc. Sometimes the most effective way to keep nasty spirits away is to let them know that you’re under the protection of someone more powerful.

When dealing with unwanted spirits, the most important thing to remember is that you do not need to be afraid. You are a powerful witch, and you are more than capable of getting rid of them. Be confident in your abilities and know that whatever happens, you can handle it.

Resources:

Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South by Aaron Oberon

A Green Witch’s Cupboard by Deborah J. Martin

Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison

SHIELDING - Empathic shielding is where you put an energy bubble around you. Not only is this vital to Empaths in order stop you from sopping up others’ emotions, but it also provides a protective screen from astral beings while you’re on the go. The short of it is, with visualization or intent alone (whatever works best for you), use your energy to encase yourself in a shield. I like to do this while meditating.

GROUNDING - This keeps you from getting too unteathered as you do energy work. Grounding is very different for everyone, but fortunately you can find many methods with a quick google search. I use grounding to push out “black water” energy (my own energy that’s been polluted with stress, etc) and draw in “clean energy” from the earth. I do this while shielding.

CLEANSING - Again, lots of different techniques with this one. Cleansing is good for spaces that have stagnant or bad energy…or that just need a pick-me-up. I have also used cleansing to guide wayward spirits out of my house.

WARDING - Warding is your number one protection against unwanted spirits entering your home. It’s basically a long-term shield for your house or living space. You start by making a list of rules and allowances for who/what gets to come into your home and under what conditions (if any), and once you have your list you go about your house reciting your rules and “stringing” your energy up, including around entrances, windows, and mirrors. Some people use other supplementary material, like banners and sigils, to sort of anchor the energy in place.

I shield and ground daily; I cleanse as needed; warding is new for me but it feels right to renew my wards with the turning of the seasons. Adjust as needed for your practice.

But in light of all the discourse going on: DISCERNMENT is still important. You always need to consider whether “bad things” are the cause of astral beings, random mundane happenstance, or your own dang self. In the case of an astral entity, you are free to set BOUNDARIES, and know that you do not have to put up with any shit from any entity, whether they be a god or a gremlin.

Personal Shielding

My mother taught me that it was important to shield myself for many reasons:

My personal energy and emotional state can have an effect on those around me.

To keep negative influences out

To keep positive close to myself

To keep other people’s energy and emotional states from overwhelming me

And to prevent those who might actively mean me harm the ability to do so psychically.

She resonates most with the element of water and forms her shielding out of it by visualising that she is surrounded by a small bubble of sea water, filled with fish and other sea creatures. It flows around her and absorbs negativity neutralising it. She sees the sea fade, not get weaker but become transparent, so that she can still feel it but is able to see through it and perform magick without having to lower her shield.

I’m a little over cautious due to some less than pleasant experiences. I have five shields one for each element:

Earth - A stone wall that protects from taking on board other peoples emotional distress

Air - A tornado that disorientates any harmful thoughts or intentions and drags them in

Fire - A blaze that transmutes negative energy into positive

Water - A sea that absorbs this energy.

Spirit - A blue egg of energy that I can easily work magick through and where I store excess energy until I Ground it or give it to someone else.

Before I learned how to make them transparent without weakening them I would strip my first four layers and have only the Spirit shield to work within a circle. 

Each person picks the shields that work best for them. One of my friends uses quartz. Another uses mirrors to bounce off negativity, but I find this inefficient, and prefer to put any energy sent to me to good use. 

Death witchcraft can be used and interpreted in many different ways. But what one does with it is often very personal, different, and unique. Here are some rituals, spells, etc. that I have done or am planning on doing that fit into my definition of Death Witchcraft.

Scrying with spirits - you may have seen my post about this a while ago, which I recommend reading if you’re interested. I touch lightly on human spirits their, but I do enjoy a session with human spirits, or even animals. I definitely ritualize scrying, though I am not sure why. It feels special to me, and always has…

Divining the future with the dead - similar to the last ritual, I divine with the dead to try and get answers, predictions, etc from them. I have a post on that too, which I wrote more recently. I really like to do this, as it gives both the spirit involved and me a hand in helping others, or even ourselves.

Grief spells and rituals - grief can be heart wrenching, lead to depression, and extreme bouts of loneliness. With consent, I sometimes do these rituals and spells to help loved ones feel more at peace. I wrote a funeral bouquet post about what I would send if asked to, and why each flower was a potent piece of healing. This is a minor form of these types of rituals.

Passing spells and rituals - helping spirits pass on, or get “unstuck” when reliving their past is a very rewarding thing. I like these because it prevents pain and suffering from life crossing over into death. Another aspect of the funeral bouquet post is for this, too.

Curses - death does not always mean bringing mortality to a living, breathing thing. I use it to smother success, disenchant happiness, etc. It seems cold, but I rarely use this in curses anymore. I have no need, at least not recently. My past curses have served me well, and my emotional response to evil people has matured.

Rebirth spells and rituals - I know the power of death, and of the rebirthing process that follows it. I am going to conduct a formal ritual regarding this and my recent recovery from depression. I want a moment of reflection where I can release the past entirely.

Communing with the dead - meditation can lead to eye opening encounters with the spirits of those who died before you. They have voices, and they will speak, even if you will not listen.

Being able to protect yourself is one of the wonderful things about the craft. Heres a list of some ways to do so. 👻

🧂Salt circles// When preforming a ritual, meditating and so on. They are basically protective barriers. If you have a broom, sweep away negative energy then lay the salt circle.

☆Sachets// These are bags that are sewn together. They are comprised of herbs. The traditional fabric to use is muslin, but any fabric will do.

👝Charm bag// These are bags that basically carry a magick spell. They can be filled with any charged items such as, stones, crystals, charms, herbs, oils, etc.

💎Crystals// One thing amazing about crystals is that they have many properties to them. Carrying some around may help. Black crystals, like obsidian or hematite will relfect negative energy. Smokey quartz will cloak you.

☆Spell jar// These are wonderful for sacred spaces and houses.

➰Sigil// Create and activate a protection sigil.

🦇Spirit animal// if you have a spirit animal, you can call them and ask for protection.

⛓Iron// hanging an iron horsehoe, open end facing down above your door to keep evil spirts out.

👀Visualization// basic meditation with a process of visualization.

♡~ This is one of the things i learned very early on as a witch. Basically, you stand outside your property. Close your eyes and start to breathe in and out. Visualize each chakra opening, kind of like meditation. When you open your last chakra, root, ensure your visualizing your roots going straight to the earths core. Then, use the power from those roots to encase a protective barrier around your house. Imagine the color of it. Imagine it pushing the spirits away from your house. ~♡

🌿🌿Herbs for protection//

Death is a daunting and controversial topic in society.

Sure a lot of our generation may joke about death lightly in various memes or ‘lol someone just kill me, I wanna die from this failure I committed’, but when actually confronted with death, some people start singing a different tune. We’ve all been affected by it some way or another, whether it be the death of a friend, family member, beloved pet, or an idol you adored. Reactions and how we are, in turn, affected by said death is variable.

Some take it better than others, others reel and take very long to recover, but it is never easy when someone reaches that inevitable ending.

As such, death witchery is a road less traveled when it comes to witches. I won’t lie and say it’s an easy path to take on. Because it isn’t, death witchcraft is probably one of the most daunting paths of witchcraft one can choose. Working closely with death isn’t for everyone and can be quite dreary on the mind, but hopefully with this entry level guide, you can really decide whether or not you truly think death witchery is a path for you.