SleepyWitchSolace

People have always been people. In Ancient Greece these questions were found on lead tablets given to the oracle at Dodona.

“Geris asks Zeus concerning a wife, whether it is better for him to take one.” “Heracleidas asks Zeus and Dione … whether there will be any offspring from his wife Aigle.” “Lysanias asks Zeus Naios and Deona [Dione] whether the child with which Annyla is pregnant is not from him.” “Cleotas asks Zeus and Dione whether it is better and profitable for him to keep sheep.”

A few people have messaged me asking for my master list of working pdfs. This is what I have and its not super organized but it is in alphabetic order for what its worth. Anyways, they’re all free so please please please save them, download them, print them and most importantly READ THEM if you come across any that strike your fancy. Also, I’m not saying that every single one of these books are completely amazing, but either way, they’re here for you to make your own value judgements on.

“Today, I’ve encountered (yet again) someone who hates that his taxes have to be spent on the welfare of others. Today, I met someone who thinks if you don’t like the military, you’re a traitor that needs to leave the country. I’ve also met someone who thinks that men are responsible for all evil in the world, and someone who thinks you need to believe in Jesus or else you’ll be banished to torment forever in the afterlife. I met someone who thinks that eating meat is the prime evil of our world, and that if you want to consider yourself a moral or compassionate person, you have to be vegan.

Today, I met someone who believes that political correctness should be law, and that people who use insensitive pronouns or adjectives should be socially ostracized. I met someone who thinks marijuana is a deadly “gateway drug” that leads to every sort of drug abuse and destroys families and causes every manner of social harm. I met someone who thinks that Obama is the antichrist, a secret muslim socialist who wants to destroy America and take everyone’s guns away. I met someone who thinks that Obama is a great guy whose health care reform is the best piece of legislation we’ve had since the great depression.

Today, I met someone who thinks we should arm teachers at all our schools, and that the only solution to our problems with crime is to have every man and woman carrying a gun. I also met someone who thinks guns should be banned almost completely, which is their idea of how to fix the problem. I met a gay guy who was really nice and all about people being tolerant, and I met a straight guy who said he’d beat up any gay guy that he thought was hitting on him. There was also a straight guy who said he was an “ally” to gay people. There was a woman who said that abortion was her “right”, and another woman that said that abortion was murder.

I met a Native American activist who thought that white people were culturally and spiritually vacuous, and an African-American activist who thought that reparations for slavery were in order. Right next to them I found a Native lady who cared more about peace than race, and an African-American man who had (by his own words) “moved beyond race, and beyond the past.” I met one of those really disgusting Ayn Rand followers who believed that Native Americans needed to be culturally destroyed because they “weren’t doing anything” with this land, and whites brought “civilization”.

I met an older lady who thought that everything was really fine with the world back when she was a teenager, and an older guy who told me things have always been “this messed up.” I met a Muslim who hated Israel, and an Israeli who hated Muslims, and I met a priest who thought God loved everyone no matter what, and a preacher who thought that God only loved the righteous. Right next to them was one of those new-age Rumi-spouting universalists who thought Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims were all silly and wrong, and that ecstatic poetry and love was all that mattered.

And the whole time I’m meeting these people, I’m thinking how bored I am with all of them. Good people, bad people, but none of them interesting to me. 

Where, I ask you, are the women who worship the moon and the earth and the sun, the men who get archaic stringed instruments and create the new ballads about princes and princesses and witches and giants from inside themselves? Where are the people whose dominant personality trait isn’t a political orientation or a sexual orientation or a religious orientation, but an aesthetic orientation towards the spirit world, towards the darkest and brightest mysteries of the strangeness of sorcery? Those are the people I want to meet.

Where are the naked dancers, the chanters, the poets of the Unseen, the painters painting spirits they have met in fever-dreams, the diviners, the out-of-body flyers, the trance-masters, the broom-riders, the people who scribble in notebooks and can seldom answer the question “what are you working on” with any honesty when some friend or family member puts it to them? Where are the herbalists and the storm-raisers? Where are the fiends who talk to the dead, the cloud-namers, the grave-earth collectors, and the people who make bonfires for the Ancestors?

Where are the people who prefer faery tale collections to any other book? (For that matter, where are the people who still read books?) Where are the fire-dancers, the loners who talk to trees, the drummers, the quiet souls and the bead-stringers, the witches who love the Master and his servitors, the witches who work day and night to gain entry to the Queen of Elfhame’s feasting-hall below? Where are those people? Where are the people who aren’t predictably boring on either side of a left/right fence? Where are the hedge riders who care more about what the spirits of a local mound think, than what the local townsfolk think?

In my dreams, naked Fayerie-women and owls try to lure me down passageways that start in the ground somewhere, and end up in the branches of silver trees and around distant stars. I’d rather talk about that than politics, diet, sexual orientation, this version of monotheism or that, this gun right or that war, this tragedy or that one.

The worst part is the extent to which I find myself- like most people- drawn into the discussions on politics and religion. I become the boring person that I’d hate to meet. Then I remember my true allegiances.”

- From Robin Artisson’s “Letters from the Devil’s Forest”

THE GRAND GRIMOIRE - known also as “The Red Dragon”. It is a collection of “black magic” grimoires believed to be as old as the 16th century AD, containing instructions purported to summon Lucifer or Lucifuge Rofocale, with the intent of forming an infernal pact (i.e. a “deal with the devil.”)

Quoting the Esoteric Archives:

“A. E. Waite pronounced this the most fantastic of the texts of the Black Magic cycle, and ‘one of the most atrocious of its class; it has a process in Necromancy which is possible, say some occult writers — in the geniality of a lucid interval — only to a dangerous maniac or an irreclaimable criminal. It must be admitted that the Rite is highly unreasonable, but in dealing with such literature it seems unsafe to advance the objection, for it applies much too widely.’”

(Emphasis is mine.)

There’s a certain mindset that is starting to become very commonplace in the community, the mindset that every spirit wants to be a companion. Obviously that’s not realistic and yet, it’s something that I’ve observed a lot. People claiming a spirit they met yesterday as their companion, people shoving every spirit that they come across into a shop, etc. It’s as if a spirit being nice to someone means that they want an eternal friendship with them and not that they’re just being friendly. You wouldn’t consider every human who has been kind to you your friend, but suddenly every spirit that talks to you is your new companion.

One thing that was particularly troubling was when I was on my old blog and people would come to me asking if they could “have” the spirits that I talked about even though nothing I shared about them would have indicated that they’re interested in companionship. In fact, it was usually the opposite, that they don’t like humans. Even mythology dictates that the majority of spirits aren’t interested in genuine friendships with humans if you don’t want to look at the experiences of many spirit workers, on an off tumblr, that corroborate the same information. Like I told my friends, if I gave away every single spirit that I met to be a companion like how many shops are doing, half of the community would either be dead or in some deep shit. Of course that’s where vetting would come in but I could write a whole other post on how absolutely abysmal many shops’ vetting processes are (rarely lasting more than three weeks, not being able to read energy in-depth, etc. ETC.). Once you throw in the fact that they’ll take in literally any spirit that they meet you get a #mess.

While it’s great that there are many spirits who want companionship with humans, you need to recognize that you’re not the most important person in the universe. You ain’t so great that every spirit wants to be friends with you or hop into your shop so you can feel good about yourself when you match them. This is where discernment comes in. Sometimes we can get so caught up in what we want the spirit to say that we project our wants on to the spirit during communication causing our fantasy to seem like “reality”. People with faulty discernment can continue down this path thinking that they’re set up with a new companion when the spirit is long gone.

We must also consider the hero-complex, that is people constantly “saving” many spirits that are eager to become companions despite just being rescued from serious abuse and torture, according to the rescuers. It’s hard to believe that there’s so many spirits out there that want to become companions after being abused. They say that they rehabilitate the spirits but unless they are certified therapists or psychologists, any “rehabilitation” that they do is dubious and untrustworthy. And yet, there’s so many rescued spirits in shops, okay with being taken care of by unqualified people and being given to other people with little screening (no, having a lot of spirit work experience doesn’t mean that someone is qualified for taking care of an abuse victim). The hero-complex clouds a person’s vision, they want to rescue spirits and be the savior and so, like the person who projects their wants of getting a new companion on a spirit, the “hero” projects their wants of being a savior onto spirits and likewise exhibits faulty discernment.

This all leads to thoughtforms.

“This spirit just showed up randomly one day wanting to be my companion!” Hmmm. Not saying that situation never happens because it definitely does, but people need to be critical about it. I mean people aren’t even questioning whether or not the spirit is malignant much less the possibility that it was a thoughtform created from their desire for a new companion. It’s not even that hard for someone to create a thoughtform like that, the feeling of lust is very powerful after all. Or when people interact with spirits with the intention of collecting a new companion. You’ll meet someone eventually but whether it’s an actual spirit or just a thoughtform made from your desire, you’ll have to be careful to determine that. Same goes for those that are constantly searching for spirits to rescue. They want to save all of these spirits so they constantly go into the astral and find all of the poor, abused spirits so they can rehabilitate them even though they don’t know how to properly do that and help them live new lives as companions uwu. It’d be a touching story if it wasn’t just thoughtforms created by the delusional fantasy that is the hero-complex.

Furthermore, the mindset that every spirit wants to be your companion opens yourself up to danger. You shouldn’t even be inviting random spirits into your wards and safe zones within hours, days, or even weeks of just meeting them, not matter how much they “want to be your companion”. If any spirit truly experienced “friendship at first sight” with you, they should be content with you waiting to build trust with them before bringing them in. Any spirit that wants access to your home under the guise of companionship shortly after you met them should be met with caution. Spirits aren’t fools. They know how gullible and trusting people can be and will take advantage of that. It’s not like pretending to be a very eager companion is hard.

.:: “Is [X] or [Y] a part of Recon Traditional Witchcraft?” ::.

In order to answer you we have to define what Traditional Witchcraft is.This term has been used in opposition to Gerald Gardner by Robert Cochrane in order to define his Craft, that he claimed was more ancient and “authentical” than the one of Gardner.Later, Ronald Hutton in his “Triumph of the Moon” debunked the idea that both Cochrane and Gardner were heirs of an ancient Craft, so they both invented it.Therefore the term “Traditional Witchcraft”, that before was “pre-wiccan Witchcraft” now means “non-wiccan Witchcraft”, so what it actually means is not clear anymore. Consequently, I use the term “Reconstructionist” Traditional Witchcraft to mean the reconstruction of the Historical Witchcraft from X-XVIII centuries in Europe.

Hutton, in the same book, disproved the idea that Witchcraft as a cult existed, and he stated that it was only a legend.He claimed that cunning folk were always Christian and therefore witches didn’t actually exist before today.In fact, those who practiced magic for their community didn’t describe themselves as witches: they were “folk healers”, “folk magicians”, “cunning folk” or “cunning wo/men”.

However, Sabina Magliocco in her “Who was Aradia” and “Aradia in Sardinia” stated that sometimes people emulated legends, therefore she opened the possibility that somebody, especially among folk magicians, emulated these legends and went in dream or with a bunch of friends or parents, to the Sabbath. She called this phenomenon of emulating legends “ostension”.With this contribute, historical witches were again a possibility, but they were in no way the totality of the cunning folk as Murray and other pre-Hutton and pre-Norman Cohn academics thought. They were just a little part of the population who internalized in their dreams these legends and they emulated them with trance techniques, dreams and/or in real life.

So, to return to your question, herbalism wasn’t part of this legend, therefore herbalism wasn’t part of witchcraft, it was part of folk magic.However folk magicians were a high percentual of the total of witches (even if witches were not a high percentual of the total of folk magicians), because there are more possibility to emulate legends about worshipping ancient Spirits if you are at strict contact with non-physical realities.

But the majority of cunning folk were not witches, they were Christians.In fact, while today we see magic as some sort of strange thing, before the germ theory of disease (which was fully accepted only with Pasteur in 1850s) magic and medicine were not so different.Sometimes charms were used together with “medical stuff”: they were part of the cure.So to claim that cunning folk were witches because they used power to heal is like to say that a physician has to be a Satanist because where else does he takes the power to heal, if not from the Devil? As you can understand, it makes little or no sense.In fact, even inquisitors had with themselves bags with blessed amulets, they only said to avoid the “superstitious” and “heretical” ones.As you can see, it’s a subtle line the one that separates unaccepted magic and accepted magic and medicine, so folk magic was not so strictly associated with Witchcraft.

When did a person became accused of being a witch? When people accused them of having created diseases or other misfortune to other people, the land and/or animals.And how could they have done this? Who gave them this power? God, as the folk healers? No, he wouldn’t have allowed this. Therefore, the Devil.

The witch, hence, was the one who worshiped the Devil at the Sabbath.The Sabbath, however, as Ginzburg demonstrated, has its origin in the Ludus Bonae Societatis, or Game of the Good Society. The Game was headed by a Female Spirit, whose name changed from place to place (Diana, Richella, Herodias, Holda, Perchta, etc.), in front of whom people bowed, they ate and drank in a banquet in her honor, then danced and had sacred sex for her.

The Ludus was, at the same time, derived from the Cortège.The Cortège was a spiritual procession of female entities, headed by a Major Female Spirit, the same of the Ludus, which proceded from house to house to eat, drink, and dance inside them, to control if people had left food offerings for them at the table of the kitchen, and to see if all was tidy, ordered and clean. If it was all ok, then after the dance the procession Leader would have blessed the home with a wand.

The Cortège was a female version of the Wild Hunt, the procession of the dead who was lead by the Wild Hunter, a male character with many names, such as Hellequin, Odin, Wotan, etc.Sometimes the Leader of the Wild Hunt was also the Leader of the Cortège/Ludus and other times viceversa. In fact we find Hellequin as King of Fairies and Perchta as Wild Huntress.

The Wild Hunt/Cortège complex was connected with the Night Battles, spirit battles in which two group of witches fought against each other or against evil spirits to save the lives of their fellow villagers or to save the crops.This practice comes from the battle between Perun and Veles, which is a pan-Indoeuropean theme.In fact we find it also in Germany, where the “Decretum” of Burchard of Worms says: “Have you believed, as certain women are accustomed to believe, to wit that by virtue of other limbs provided you by the devil you have crossed in the silence of the quiet night through closed doors to fly into the clouds where you have waged battle on others, both inflicting and receiving wounds”.

So we can say that there was an union, around the 10th century in Germany (I say Germany because Prüm is where there was the first mention of it) of the following themes to create the Witchcraft legend:- the Wild Hunt, which came from the Germanic Einherjar. The Einherjar were those who died in battle and were brought to Valhalla by Valkyries;- the Cortège, which was the female version of this procession and later became the Ludus/Sabbath;- Wild Hunt/Cortège/Ludus/Sabbath was connected with Veles, or the underworld (“black” witchcraft) part of this theme, while the Night Battles with Perun, or the sky (“white” witchcraft) part of this theme. [No racism involved, it’s how it’s academically called, I’m just reporting it].

So we can say that Witchcraft, historically, was just this:

- Wild Hunt (and so the dreams and visions about it);

- Night Battles (and so the dreams and visions about it);

- Cortège (physical - as a procession - or in dreams or visions);

- The offerings to the Cortège (which were connected to it because it was what the Cortège ate and drank proceding from house to house);

- Ludus/Sabbath (physical or in dreams or visions);

- Visitations to the Otherworld (Elphame or the Sybil’s Paradise), because according to some academics such as Carlo Ginzburg, the journey to the Sabbath was in fact a journey to the realm of the dead, and in fact sometimes such as in Umbria with the Appenine Sybil and in Scotland with the Queen of Elphame, the feast of the spirits was celebrated in another world, which can be seen as the Otherworld;

- The offerings and the discovery of the Familiar Spirits that bringed the practitioner to these phenomena.

All the rest is something that is connected to it, but it’s not witchcraft.

For example the Familiars were part of Witchcraft only if they were guides that brought the person to the Sabbath/Ludus/etc. However, if the same Spirits were not such a guide, they were part of the folklore and popular magic and not of witchcraft: even non-witches did offerings to the fairies, however only witches went to Elphame and fairies were their helpers and guides in doing it (the journey to Elphame is analogous to the journey to the Sabbath, because both represent the realm of the dead).

Moreover, folk magic was part of the life of many witches, but the majority of folk magicians were not witches, as we saw: they were Christians.

.:: Historically Attested Trance Techniques and Fairy Offerings in Traditional Witchcraft ::.

(From: Éva Pócs. Small Gods, Small Demons: Remnants of an Archaic Fairy Cult in Central and South-Eastern Europe.  In: Michael Ostling. Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: Small Gods at the Margins of Christendom. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 255-276.)

“The rich wealth of narratives that surrounds the figure and activity of magicians consists of folklore motifs of learning and initiation. From time to time the fairies seize them and transport them to the otherworld, often starting in early childhood, and there teach them fairy knowledge—mostly the use of medicinal herbs. One common motif is a serious illness that the selected individual needs to undergo, as well as punishment by the fairies of any reluctant candidates. All of this is well known from the narrative repertoire of other magical-religious specialists, too. A unique characteristic of the initiation of fairy magicians is, however, that the fairies snatch them in a state of trance or dream induced by music and so transport them to their own golden, glorious other-world. 

How does all of this manifest in the actual living practice of magicians? Some Serbian reports speak of the trance-inducing role of music and dance actually used in “real-life” initiations. For instance, at a certain age a candidate for a fairy magician falls into a trance; that is, goes to the so-called fairy tree of the village in a semi-conscious state and begins to dance there. Or, quite simply, the person will commence an ecstatic dance which, according to one data item, lasted for nine days and nine nights. The initiates eventually become the professional healers of their community who pursue their activity with the patronage and assistance of the fairies. Some of them re-enter contact with the fairies from time to time. 

On the basis of field observations, Maria Vivod describes the practice of a Serbian “fairy seeing” healer from Voivodina. She explains that this woman was in constant communication with her fairy helpers who “sent her” the patient’s diagnosis and also explained to her how she could help the patient. She used the term fairy disease to refer to mental diseases and states of possession, and would offer healing and fortune telling.

An indispensable part of the healing activity of the fairy magicians of the Balkans was to present sacrifices—a practice prevalent in the Orthodox areas of the Balkans until quite recently. Healing and the offering of sacrifices would both take place in the distinctive space-time structure of the fairy world; in other words at the fairy spots which were, as we have mentioned, taboo at all other times. This could be a meadow, a spring, or an artificially created sacred space (e.g., a circle drawn around the sufferer). Most commonly, however, it was what they called a “fairy tree” (e.g., the hawthorn for the Serbs and a rose tree in Transylvania). Another common fairy spot was any location where the patient had become possessed by the fairies due to some breach of taboo—the point where they had been “struck” by the fairies. The time for healing was usually one of the fairy periods of the calendar year, such as Rusalia (Bulgarian rusalska sednitsa, Romanian rusalia, Serbian rusalje), the week before Pentecost. Alternately, it could take place during one of those “fairy times” that followed in cyclic repetition (1 week, 1 month or 1 year after the appearance of the disease). The sequence of sacrificial foods and drinks varied from place to place, but milk, honey, wine, bread or cake are part of the sequence in practically all data. The offering of sacrifices is often preceded or followed by a ritual invocation of the fairies in the presence of the sufferer (e.g., Albanian fairy healers dress the patient in white and make them sit in a quiet spot inside a circle that they draw themselves); Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, Albanian and Croatian data testify to female magicians praying to the fairies in a whisper or reciting charming spells over them in a chanting voice and in a state of semi-trance, requesting that the fairies withdraw their harm-doing and restore the patient’s health in return for the offerings. The patient usually spends the night at the spot or, at other times, the healer will sleep at the location with the patient and an incubation dream takes place during which the patient recovers. 

The relation of fairy sacrifices to the cult of the dead was noticed quite early—Lawson claims that the offerings given to the nereids in Greece are actually the same as the Christian offering to the dead, the pomana, which is taken to the cemetery as an offering for the salvation of the souls of the dead. 

Fairy offerings presented by Romanians during Rusalia week are strongly influenced by the fact that this is also the week of sacrificial offerings to the dead. This again strongly underlines the close relationship between the realm of the dead and the fairy world of the Balkans. The relationship which Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek fairy magicians maintain with the fairies can in many cases be seen as verging on communication with the dead. For example, Romanian and Serbian female magicians who have “good fairy” patrons, called the saints, fall into a trance and communicate with the dead regularly at the time of the major Christian feasts of the dead; that is, at Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday. We also know of magicians who, although fairy magicians by name (vilarka, vilevniak), mostly transmit messages of the dead to the living during their spontaneously induced states of trance. A certain process of “Christianization” may be observed along another line, too—besides fairies and the dead, Christian deities also functioned as communication partners to magicians. Fairies who punish taboo breakers and at the same time accept sacrifices and offer healing were replaced, on many occasions, by God or the Virgin Mary. People would pray to them while presenting their offerings. The role of helping or healing fairies is now sometimes filled in by angels.

After many requests, I’ve made a rebloggable version of my ‘Weather Magic’ page. Here you will find heaps of resources to help you with weather/storm craft. If you’ve read some of my previous posts about weather magic you will notice some similarities - that is because this is a collection of every weather witching post that I’ve ever posted compiled into handy resources post.

Weather Magic

The term “weather magic” or “weather witching” has been used to mean anything from divination and forecasting of weather to actual control and manipulation of the weather itself. From calling up treacherous storms to destroy another’s crops or providing fair winds for those at sea, witches (and even those who do not consider themselves to be such) have always been involved with weather magic. When you consider that most forms of magic are based around an agricultural past, the ability to affect and predict the weather was considered an invaluable skill. After all, if your family’s livelihood depended on the success of your crops (or the ability to find water as it did in my family’s case), weather magic would be an extremely handy thing to know.

Why the url Storm Born Witch?

I am quite fortunate, as the gift for weather related magic comes easily to my family. For generations, the men in my family have been dowsers or water diviners. However, it wasn’t until after I displayed an aptitude to weather related magic that I was told about my family’s history with it. My grandfather was the last water diviner in the family and he died when I was very young so I was never taught how to divine for water. My grandmother was the one to teach me what little she knew about weather magic - the rest either occurred naturally or I picked up along the way.

Calling Up A Wind - Whistling Up A Wind

This is the most common form of weather magic and has been practiced for hundreds of years. Depending on the pitch and tone of the whistle a witch can create a gentle breeze or a sharp gust of wind. Traditionally, if the skill of whistling up a wind does not come naturally to you the option of making a ‘wind whistle’ out of willow or alder wood is available.

Here in Australia, whistling up a wind is probably the most common form of magic I do. I honestly do not go a day without whistling up a cool breeze. It’s bloody hot here and sometimes a cool breeze is just what you need.

Resources for Calling Winds:

How to Whistle Up a Wind by stormbornwitch​

Other Methods of Calling Up a Wind by stormbornwitch​

Traditional Sailor’s Wind Knots (Untie the Wind) by ioqayin​

Storm Casting

Storm casting is the art of creating storms. There are many different methods to creating storms and bringing rain. The method used by my family is to fill a jug with water and while sitting outside (or facing a window) pour the water into a basin or bowl. Dip the tip of your pointer finger into the water and slowly make five clockwise circles in the water (if you have a pendant necklace this can be used instead - just above the water in the bowl). As you are making the circles call the wind to bring in a storm by blowing (or whistling a continuous low note - the sound of wind over the mouth of a glass bottle) over the water in the basin.

Resources for Storm Casting

My Method of Calling Storms by stormbornwitch​

Traditional Methods of Calling Storms by stormbornwitch​

Ways to Stop a Storm (Dispersing, Binding & Preventing)

There are multiple ways to stop a storm. The most common are dispersing or binding storms. However there are also ways to prevent storms from coming by directing them away from where you are. This is great if you’re holding an event outside and you need good weather.

Dispersing

This method involves spreading the storm out over a large area thereby minimising its effects. You can disperse a storm by calling winds to blow it away (or in a certain direction) or if you favour using weather maps you can draw the low pressure system moving away and gradually dissipating.

Binding (Storm Catching)

This method is also called ‘storm catching’ and involves catching a storm and binding it within an object (usually a bottle or knots) so it can be released gradually at a later date by pulling out the cork or undoing the braid/knots.

Resources for Binding Storms

How to bind a storm in your hair by stormbornwitch​

How to bind the wind in rope by ioqayin​

Storm catching or “reeling in a storm” is even more difficult than storm casting so it’s always wise to think before you cast. Too much energy put into a storm and it will go on for weeks (and cause some flooding - basement incident) or it will be extremely violent and knock down power lines and tree branches. Too little energy and all you will get is a 5 minute shower of rain.

Other ways to stop a storm (Cutting a Storm) by witchuptheroad​

Preventing a Storm (Weather Maps)

However, if you wish to prevent a storm from forming, you’re going to have to pull out the weather maps. To make a weather map all you need to do is to print out a map of your local area or the area you’re trying to keep a storm away from.

Just use google maps and don’t make the area too big or you might seriously strain yourself magically. Then laminate the map - now you have your own ‘whiteboard’ to draw weather symbols on to generate certain types of localised weather.

To practice this kind of magic you really do need to know how weather systems work and how they’re likely to move; knowing a little bit about meteorology goes a long way.

Once you’re ready, find out what the weather is predicted to be and draw it on your map. Now draw the high/low pressure systems moving so that the area you’re trying to protect doesn’t get rain. This method can also be used to bring rain to a certain area.

List of Resources for Storm/Weather Witches

What is a Storm/Weather Witch by rainy-day-witchcraft – This post details what it means to be a witch that uses weather magic / storm craft in their practice; a good definition.

Tips for Starting Storm Craft by stormsorceress – This post gives some really great tips for those interested in starting storm craft; a really good beginner post.

The trouble with weather magic by skychild1989 – This post outlines some of the things you should think about before performing weather magic (i.e. think about the possible consequences of your actions and evaluate you capabilities before messing with things you don’t know that much about). This is a really good reminder.

The Difference between Storm Water and Rain Water by stormbornwitch – This post highlights the symbolic differences between storm water and rain water and also discusses the properties the water can take on when it is collected at certain times of the year (i.e. particular lunar phases/holidays/sabbats/esbats/solstices etc).

Storm Water by stormsorceress – This post is great and outlines the associations and uses of storm water in witchcraft.

Rain Water by stormsorceress – This post outlines the different types of rain water, their associations and uses in witchcraft.

Storm Water by fumbletongue – This post highlights and gives ideas for the many uses storm water can have in one’s craft; from protection to cursing.

Combining Knot Craft & Storm Craft by stormsorceress – This post gives some really great ideas for combining storm craft with knot craft.

How to Draw Energy from Storms by stormbornwitch – This post outlines how to draw energy from storms and how to direct it.

Storm Witch’s Power Bath by brynja-storm – This post gives the ingredients of a power bath which is designed to give you the energy of a storm; great for when you’re in need of a recharge or before you perform a big spell.

The Storm Witch’s Hurricane Curse by brynja-storm – This curse traps its target in an eternal storm with all the gale force winds, rain, lightning and debris associated with a hurricane.

The Tools of a Storm/Weather Witch by stormsorceress – This post outlines the tools of storm/weather witches in different regions (i.e. near the ocean, in a desert, forest, mountain ect).

Tips for Refining Weather Manipulation by stormbornwitch – This post gives some tips for witches who want to get better at weather magic and manipulating the weather.

A Light in the Storm by stormsorceress – This spell is meant to be used to aid in the healing of seasonal depression. Other uses of this spell include aiding in the healing of sadness, grief, and anxiety as well as providing a ‘guiding light’ to people you wish to protect while travelling.

And as always my ‘weather witching’ tag will have links to every single post that I’ve posted which has anything to do with weather magic.

This is a collection of articles and information pertaining to Ancestral work with both The Beloved Dead (ancestors of blood, family, familiar ancestors) & The Mighty Dead (ancestors of spirit, witchcraft). The practices that surround working with the dead, benevolent necromancy, ancestral worship, and altars, and offerings. 

Who’s Who : Ancestors (Greenstag)

Ancestral Practice, Altars & The Mighty Dead (Wildhunt)

Altars to the Beloved & Mighty Dead (Sarahannelawless)

Ancestral Altars & Rituals (Sarahannelawless)

In Search of The Mighty Dead (Pantheos)

Ancestor Altars (AFWcraft)

Honoring the Dead in the Northern Tradition (Northernpaganism)

Dem Bones (Newworldwitchery) 

Dancing with the Ancestors (Walkingthehedge)

What is Necromancy (Greenstag)

For the Ancestors (Northernpaganism)

Related Articles 

Drying & Preparing Graveyard Dirt (Unfetteredwood)

Recipe for New Flesh (Walkingthehedge)

Nature Friendly Offering Stones (Unfetteredwood)

Mullen Candles & Torches (Unfetteredwood) 

Creating an Ancestor Garden (Unfetteredwood)

I actually don’t know much at all about modern godspousing. I don’t practice it, and am not overly interested in practising it - so I don’t tend to read about it. And I honestly don’t have any strong opinions about it.

I honestly don’t know exactly how these arrangements would work, but I imagine that there are a multitude of different types of relationships a godspouse can have with a deity.

If anyone has anymore information, feel free to add onto this post.

☀️☀️☀️

I can talk a little about AE ‘godspousing’ in the form of the God’s Wife of Amun, which is a pretty interesting example. My favourite period of Egyptian history is Third Intermediate Period… and that is when a small group of absolutely badass women ruled Thebes. They took the Queenly NK title of God’s Wife of Amun, and changed it into a new political position. Displaced the High Priest of Amun and were just amazing. Each of the ladies that took the position was a daughter or sister of a pharaoh, and their successor was an adopted daughter. They wielded amazing political power and changed the course of Egyptian history a few times.

Corians are spirits who come from another dimension’s realm and are the embodiments of ink and color.

Appearance:

Corians look mostly like humans, but colorful.

Each individual can take a specific animal form, as well.

Each individual is a different color, and said color usually manifests in their hair, eyes, and skin. They tend to dress in their color as well.

There is a separate clan of Corians that consists of grey/black shaded individuals, they sometimes are mistaken for shadow people. 

Characteristics:

Due to being made out of ink, Corans are resistant and do not take physical damage in fights.

However, for the same reason, water is extremely dangerous for them, for they dissolve in contact with it.

Their ink can be toxic if they so desire. Staining can be poisonous, and may or may not be permanent. This only happens when there is intention.

Corians live long lives, being 200 ~ 500 earth years is still a young age for their kind.

They live in society.

The act of “consuming” one another is not unusual in their culture, specially as an act of love and devotion. Two or more individuals will become one, mixing their colors together. Separation is possible, although difficult.

That is also a method of domination, and a crime when done against one’s will.

Offerings:

Corians are quite hard to encounter or bumb into as they prefer not to leave their home realm, but just in case, they might enjoy:

Things in their respective color

Rainbow themes

Reflective surfaces

Ink

Paintings

etc.

Before i start i would like to make it clear that this post is almost entirely UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) mostly formulated from first hand experience, extensive reading of others’ experiences, and some things spirits have shared with me. After spending some time in the astral and traveling out of body I wanted to come to some way to describe and talk about my experiences.

This is all just a collection of my thoughts on how astral travel and like practices might work that I’ve developed to make talking about these things easier. Take it as you will.

Dimensions and planes:

When heading out of body, where exactly are you going and what part of you is it that is traveling there? This is one of the most fundamental questions that need to be answered when you start going out of body.

What I have come to learn is that we are multi-dimensional beings. We don’t just exist on in the physical dimension, but we are on one plane. For this post I’m going to refer to the plane of existence we are on as the “earthly plane.” This plane, like us, passes through a more than just this physical dimension (the 3rd dimension / 3D for short).

Plane can passes through many different dimensions as well as other planes. This overlap between some planes make them easier to get to. For example, some Faerie realms/planes pass through and/or run parallel to our own. Which is why cultures here on the earthly plane tend to have lots of interactions with Faeries and their lore. 

Beings can exist on only few dimensions of a plane or even just one. We are lucky enough to have aspects of our being that can traverse these other dimensions of our realm and other planes far out in the universe. In my experience lots of spirits tend to dwell in higher dimensions on our plane that we consider to be mythical as well as some that are seemingly made up entirely. These spirits tend to stick to their higher dimension and avoid this 3D because energies and rules here are far more rigid, but occasionally they will dip down here for a little fun. Our psychical senses can be a thrill for spirits that can manifest here. 

This post is meant to just be the basics of my view on dimensions and planes, so I’ll go into further detail on the specifics in other posts.

Here is a simple 2D diagram to help explain what i mean:

It is by no means an accurate diagram of where these planes or located or anything about them. This is merely a tool to explain this theory and what i mean when I say they move upwards through dimensions as well as how they cross and pass close to other planes. Not all planes are perfectly uniform and straight like in my diagram. They are warped by everything on them.

Astral travel and the Astral self:

We as beings have multiple “bodies” or parts of our selves that are based on and can travel through these other dimensions. These other dimensional aspects of our person are also when gives us our “psychic” senses since they are constantly perceiving these dimensions when our psychical senses are not. 

These bodies are all connected by what I call a “soul cord” since when I look at it, I can sometimes see it tying a person to their astral body as well as other parts of them self. The soul cord acts as an umbilical cord connecting all aspects of ourselves to our soul or higher selves. I believe that it is this higher self/soul aspect of who we are that is the collective experiences of all our lives we have lived.

One of these bodies is our astral body, and it is the body most people use when traveling outside of their physical form. Our astral self as it’s name suggests dwells mostly on the astral plane. The astral is a MASSIVE plane that expanses many different dimensions and planes. It’s why lots of creatures on the astral are very foreign to us as 3D earthly beings.

The astral is like a massive ocean connecting a bunch of other planes of existence and our astral body is the boat we use to let our consciousness travel it, and like the ocean with out a good map you end up wondering aimlessly until you collide with something. This is what happens to a lot of first time time astral travelers. They go out and hope they find something but more often then not they just end up swimming through the astral and stumbling across stray beings that might of help them. It’s this type of blind exploration that makes the astral something some people fear traveling across.

Under most normal circumstances nothing bad will happen to a person on the astral and even if something does go wrong it is extremely unlikely to come back to you here and have any impact. Almost everything on the astral is there with a purpose minding it’s own business, and if you have one too and don’t mess with things you don’t understand you will be perfectly fine.

Almost everyone experiences astral travel differently, so it’s best to find a way that works for you. It took me a long time to get out of body, but it first happened intentionally when I got a trusted spirit to help pull my astral body away from my physical body.

Moving between dimensions and planes (basics):

As I said above, astral travel/projection are one method of traveling between dimensions & planes but they are not the only ones. There are many ways of getting to other planes and not all of them give you access to the same places. Some planes have strict “doorways” in and out that you will have to figure out yourself or be invited by someone else to use.

Proximity to a plane plays a role in how easily you can move between them. Planes that intersect tend to be fairly simple to astral project too with enough know how. The astral plane is massive, it connects many planes and passes through most dimensions (as far as I understand) so my diagram version of the astral does not do it’s size justice.

The dominant types of energies in a person’s system will also dictate where they end up when they start traveling out of body. I find that without focusing on a place to go I either end up in a void layer/plane or some watery plane for this reason.

Sometimes spirit work is forgetting that your companion is there and then they jump scare you by knocking something over because they’re fed up with you.

Sometimes spirit work is meeting something so terrifying you don’t travel to the astral for weeks.

Sometimes spirit work is meeting a spirit who is an absolute sweet heart but looks terrifying and upsetting them because you immediately start screaming when you see them for the first time.

Sometimes spirit work is having your companion leave because they need their space and you get sad waiting for them to return.

Sometimes spirit work is scary.

Sometimes spirit work is awesome.