Personally, I view different decks and other fortune-telling tools as trying out different keys on an old lock to an attic.

See, I have innate “psychic” ability. I just can’t really use it off the cuff that reliably. I can’t look at someone and tell them aloud what’s going to happen to them, even if I do get a strong sensation about it, because it feels very abstract. That’s the door: I know what’s in there, I just can’t quite get my hands on it. (The attic itself is “the future”/the truth, which I have a very complicated view on and will spare you all from because I’m sure no one cares lmao.)

Intellectually, the thing preventing me from getting my hands on that reading is the metaphorical lock. We’ve all got those barriers that keep us from doing and saying stuff despite ourselves. You know, like when you get this gut feeling that this guy is gonna steal from you, but you pass it off as nonsense, and then he steals from you. The door is your secondary instinct to pass it off as nonsense, or worry about getting it wrong.

Now, personally, I’m blessed with a creaky, useless old lock. Just about any key can jostle it open if I try hard enough. Some keys work a little better, and some work a lot. So, for example, the Wildwood Tarot was a great key and let me right on in to the attic. The Light Grey Tarot was... less good. It’s more like a lockpick set: I wasn’t really psychologically equipped to use it, and even if I was, why use a lockpick set when I have a perfectly good key right there?

So, personally, oracles are more like skeleton keys to me. They speak to the psychological symbols that comprise that lock, the methods that let me interpret the contents of the attic. They have less of a barrier to entry. Keywords, like “toxic” or “fire,” let my brain do its own thing and interpret as it will. So the key opens the lock right quick.

Meanwhile, a tarot deck is a specific key. It tends to give more abstract answers slower. It has more teeth and more trappings and sometimes you can’t find the key easily because it’s on a ring of a dozen other similar keys. Tarots have their own endemic personality--they’re not just blank slates to let you project your psychological symbolism on. So they’re a lot different to use, but they can give you more objective answers.

What’s the point of writing all this? No clue. Just thinking about the differences between tarots and oracles, even when they’re aesthetically very similar a la the Earthbound and the Wooden.

Well, I mean, there’s lots of stuff between deciding to do a spell and the outcome (or lack thereof) that could go wrong, like so much stuff.

If you’re religiously inclined, maybe it wasn’t meant to be and your gods/deities/spirits/ancestors put a stop to it at conception. Or, more likely...

You aren’t doing it right. Now, I’m not saying that there’s one way to do spellcraft, but I am saying that there’s a right way to do it for everyone and a lot of people have different ways that work better for them or, alternatively, not at all.

Psychologically, maybe you aren’t using the right symbols. Maybe the color gold would work better for you personally for a money spell than green would (which is a common book association), or maybe you just aren’t feeling anything from one of your components, like, “this wicker basket represents my hopes and dreams!” Does it? Do you really believe that? Sometimes you gotta be like, this wicker basket is my hopes and dreams. This wicker basket is the most important thing. You have to basically whip yourself into believing it. Psychology can be a huge factor (and when I sorted that out is when I actually started to be capable of spellcraft, personally).

Did you specify a time period? It’s a fairly common mindset, from what I understand, that you have to set a time period, like “by tomorrow” or “by the end of the year.” That’ll also help you determine successes or failures easier. I keep a logbook because I take a super science-y approach to magic and want to keep track of what works and what doesn’t, and setting a time period can help.

You might find practicing your energy work helps. A lot of witches I know swear by energy work.

Maybe try writing your own spells if you’re not already. That way everything is focused on you and your workspace, and there’s no unnecessary detritus between you and success.

Or if you can’t write your own spells, try to find a spell that really clicks with you. I use Illes’ Encyclopedia of Spells for both straight-out-of-the-book work and inspiration for my own work because she provides many different spells that all do the same thing. Despite that, some work better than others.

You may just need more practice. Keep trying!

ALSO: Something about what you said stands out to me: “I charge and cleanse the items.” You aren’t cleansing the items after you charge them, right? That’s like baking a cake, and icing it, and then washing the cake.

So there’re just a few ideas for you to think about, any or none of them could help. I think spellcraft really is just a very personal thing, and spell books tend to gloss over that and make it seem like an easy, kind of like... plug-and-play game. But I think it takes practice, like any other skill.

ANYWAY hope this helps. ♥

Hilariously, bedbugs are exactly the kind of solution where magic is ideal: You’ve tried all of the conventional ways and they just won’t work, so magic it is.

Hmmmm.

Well, since you didn’t specify what the curse should do, I’ll just go crazy...

Yarrow and yew branches to wrap flowers around, plus bitter nightshade, coltsfoot, and birdsfoot trefoil to drop a vengeful gigabomb on their sorry ass, snakeroot to up the godawful factor, optional yellow tulip to fuck up the love life, and tansy, which’ll have a bonus effect of keeping them the heck away from you (did you know tansy’s a pest deterrent?), accented with weeping willow tendrils to kick them while they’re down, all wrapped in thorns, which will not only bind the curse to them but also actually physically hurt them when they touch it.

That’s, like, the nuclear warfare of bouquets.

CAN BOUQUETS BE THAT POWERFUL???? TONIGHT AT NINE,

hahahaha, okay!

Cornflower, butterfly weed, columbine, foxgloves, cosmos, and holly, with a beautyberry branch accent!