Among the Bracken 𓆏

Process obtained by the author of the "Petit Albert" from a peasant with whom he was staying temporarily. (16th century.) -

(…) "He told me that having prevented a Gypsy from being beaten and manhandled for having stolen a few chickens, she had taught him the secret of making a Mandrake and that, since that time, he had always prospered better and better, and that hardly a day passed without him finding something. And this is how the Gypsy had taught him to make the Mandrake. You must take a root of Bryonia which approaches the human figure, it will be brought out of the ground on a Monday in the spring, when the moon is in a happy constellation, either in conjunction with Jupiter, or in amiable aspect with Venus ; the extremities of this root are cut off, as gardeners do when they wish to transplant a plant ; then we must bury it in a cemetery, in the middle of the grave of a dead man and water it before sunrise for a month, with cow's milk in which we will have drowned three bats ; at the end of this time it is removed from the ground and found to resemble the human figure more closely ; we dry it in an oven heated with Verbena, we keep it wrapped in a piece of shroud which was used to wrap a dead body. As long as one is in possession of this mysterious root, (…) one sees one's luck increasing every day."

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Abstract: In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, people commonly wore words, names, letters, symbols, and images about their bodies for protection or healing. Drawing on French sources, this article examines the widespread practice of wearing textual amulets in this period as revelatory of an enduring belief in the power of words and images to protect and heal the individual who wore them. It analyzes the vehement critique of this practice by period theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, who attacked their contemporaries’ investment in the materiality of the textual object as superstition.

Points of Interest:

Includes several pictures and concrete examples of paper amulets used for healing and protection (both general & against specific dangers).

Discusses the meanings attached to where/how the amulet is worn. One memorable example to cure fever has it sewn to the arm with five stitches of red thread (representing stigmata), though most were worn around the neck, in jewellery or a container, or tied to a relevant body part (this is the case for an amulet against impotence, for example).

Some discussion of the blurring of boundaries between learned and folk magic, with popular amulets occasionally including astrological symbols or words taken from occult texts.

Discusses the importance of words and images in the popular imagination, and how this belief was denounced by religious authorities even though amulets frequently used Christian phrases and images (pointing this out because people often conflate the practices of everyday Christians with official church doctrine when it comes to magic).

Take a candle, preferably of white or black, and run it over yourself from head to foot and back up to head again, saying a prayer of your choice or simply stating an affirmation of intent. Place it onto a plate, place salt on the plate and light it, saying a prayer again or a chant as follows:

"This candle harbours all ill from me Burn away, burned it shall be Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust As Fire Burns, so too shall the ill around me"

Light the candle and let it burn down to its entirety, diving from the wax if there were specific areas that were affected, and if there were still things that needed to be worked through in more ritual. For example:

A broken heart could represent that emotional pain is the source of the negativity A cross shaped piece of wax could represent suffering or burdens, as well as protection or that someone has placed an obstacle in your path A scorpion's tail represents betrayal and that someone has been sending negative energy your way Candle wax that represents an eye could represent evil eye or that someone has been envious of you, or speaking ill of you Moons in the wax could represent deliberate spellwork, harmful spirits or negativity surrounding you.

These are then neutralized and further rituals are taken. If the ritual has delivered auspicious symbols, depending on the person who is reading the wax, then it is to be taken as a good sign.

When studying classic literature on planetary talismans, we see them mainly being made out of metals - quite expensive ones sometimes.

But not everyone has the budget to get tools for engraving, let alone buying all kinds of planetary metals or even necessary ceremonial tools common in Renaissance magic.

1. Crafting your Talisman

First, you have to craft your talisman before you consecrate it - the consecration is specifically the act which makes your talisman into a “magical item”.

Any magical operation within Renaissance and planetary magic requires ritual purity; which can be achieved by abstinence, chastity and fasting. In order to achieve this state I personally practice abstinence and chastity at least three days minimum before the work, and fast either a day or a few hours before the work. Thankfully, this can be achieved without spending money (on the contrary, it probably saves you money unless you add a purification bath).

Usually, a text will call for a specific material in order to make a talisman out of - this is usually a type of metal. Now making a talisman out of metal requires tools for engraving as well; which a whole lot of people can’t afford.

There is actually a traditional substitute for these metals - parchment! Why parchment? Well, most likely because it was the primary “paper” of that time - we see similar ways of substitution in the Greek Magical Papyri which (big surprise) calls for papyrus as a universal substitute.

So, in my opinion you don’t need to buy real parchment which would be made out of animal skin and usually costs a whole lot as well (+for a lot of people there are also ethical and moral reasons as to why they would not want to purchase real parchment). Out of “deductive” reasoning, I came to the conclusion that you can use any type of “blank” writing material - be it paper or “parchment” paper.

It won’t make your talisman any less of a talisman. Just make sure you use the correct methods and timing, and you should be good. Remember that most planetary talismans should also be crafted in the appropriate day and hour - and it you can, do it during a waxing moon.

2. Incense

Now after you have crafted your talisman at appropriate times and have picked a time for your consecration, it’s time to pick your incense.

A lot of traditional practitioners will go for resin incense or even self-made incense. This can be quite expensive or you’d need to be well-versed with incense-making and planetary properties for the second option - which can also be quite time consuming.

So what then? Well there are two inexpensive options:

Stick incense

Herbs

Stick incense is very accessible and inexpensive - it also comes in many different scents. This is definitely an option for a lot of people.

Here are incenses and their planetary property, taken from Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy and the Heptameron:

Sun: Frankincense (Agrippa), Red Sanders (Heptameron)

Moon: Aloe (Heptameron)

Mars: Pepper (Heptameron), Sanders (Agrippa)

Mercury: Mastic (Heptameron)

Jupiter: Storax (Agrippa), Saffron (Heptameron)

Venus: Ladanum (Agrippa), Saussurea Lappa or Pepperwort* (Heptameron)

Saturn: Sulfur (Heptameron), Pepperwort Root & Frankincense (Agrippa)

*The word used in this instance of the Heptameron makes it ambiguous what incense/herb is meant - Joseph H. Peterson proposes that Saussuera Lappa was meant instead of Pepperwort.

However if you’re like me and you don’t have an esoteric store nearby, or generally not a store that sells stick incense - you can also settle for herbs! Which is actually something that a whole lot of grimoires also propose (if you look at incenses listed above).

Here are some herbs, plants and trees and their planetary properties you can burn instead of resins or stick incenses, taken from Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy:

Sun: laurel/bay leaves, saffron, marigold, ginger

Jupiter: basil, bugloss, sea green

Moon: hyssop, rosemary

Venus: coriander, thyme, violet

Mercury: marjoram, parsley, pimpernel

Mars: nettle, mustard seeds, leeks, onions, garlic

Saturn: cumin, daffodil, dragonwort, mandrake

Please just make sure to look into the herb your using before burning it, since some of the herbs Agrippa lists might be poisonous!

3. Invocation & Consecration

Now it’s time for the consecration! Of course, make sure to do the consecration at the appropriate time and election. The least you need are the correct planetary day, hour and a waxing moon. For planetary hours, you can just use free apps like AstroVizor or websites like planetaryhours.net

The planetary days are:

Sunday: Sun

Monday: Moon

Tuesday: Mars

Wednesday: Mercury

Thursday: Jupiter

Friday: Venus

Saturday: Saturn

For more on astrological timing within planetary magic, please consult this introductory post by myself and this more in-depth article by Christopher Warnock.

Take your talisman and prepare your incense at the time you selected. Now, use the planetary invocation you selected - wait, so where do we get those from?

There are tons of books on the market that include such invocations, however you can just settle literature that is already public domain. I myself use the Orphic Hymns which had been used by Marsilio Ficino as invocations to the planets.

Sun: 3. Orphic Hymn to Helios

Moon: 8. Orphic Hymn to Selene

Saturn: 12. Orphic Hymn to Kronos

Jupiter: 14. Orphic Hymn to Zeus

Mercury: 27. Orphic Hymn to Hermes

Venus: 54. Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite

Mars: 64. Orphic Hymn to Ares

Use the appropriate invocation, burn your herb, wood or resin and pass your talisman through the smoke. This process infuses your talisman with the corresponding planetary energy, as well as with the spirit itself. This is a process known as suffumigation.

Note that suffumigation is not the same as the forceful binding of a spirit. You ask the planetary spirit or god to infuse your talisman with its presence and you do not bind or incarcerate a spirit within a talisman. After the process is complete, store it with care and respect until you place it somewhere, where you want your talisman to take effect.

And that’s it. You don’t anything more to make a planetary talisman!

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Sources

Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius: Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Translated by James Freake, edited by Joseph H. Peterson. London, R.W., 1651.

d’Abano, Pietro: Heptameron, or Magical Elements. Edited by Jodeph H. Peterson.

Taylor, Thomas, translator: The Hymns of Orpheus. 1792. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

Ficino, Marsilio: Three Books on Life. Translated and edited by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. 1989. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019.

Websites

Renaissance Astrology by Christopher Warnock

Planetary Hours Calculator

Esoteric Archives by Joseph H. Peterson

Part 2, Intro to Chaos Magick

So, if you’ve been practicing as a chaos magician for a little while now, good work! If not, and this stuff sounds cool enough that you would like to get started, check out Chaos Magic 101 [here]!

After a bit of practice, you should now be well versed in things like firing sigils using the SPLIFF method (Remember, from [Oven Ready Chaos]), meditating, learning a divination system or two.

By now you may have also branched out and tested tech from other systems of magick like candle spells (If you’re unfamiliar, Aidan Wachter has a super straightforward method of doing this, which can be found [here]) or Jan Fries’ (author of the criminally underrated book Visual Magick, which you should definitely read and can be found [here]) Cup Meditation / Invocation. Not strictly necessary as of yet to have branched out a bit, but nice work if you’ve found something cool to do.

Either way, the notion that practice doing these things, not the theory behind them, is the best teacher still applies! So be sure to get out there and try some stuff!

So let’s get down to business

After having done this whole chaos magick thing for a bit, you may be wondering where to go from here, or encountered some sort of problem that requires a solution little more finesse or a little more longevity than a sigil can provide. If this is the case, a viable solution may be constructing a servitor to complete the task at hand.

“But Key, What the Hell is a Servitor?”

I’m glad you asked! An easy way to think of a servitor when you’re still a beginner is as a sigil that has come alive; some small creature that’s reason for being is solving a problem, completing a task, manipulating the probability of an outcome, or something along those lines. There’s a bit more nuance to it than that (if you’re really curious, and willing to be more than a little confused, there are some good theory discussions found [here]) but for now this operative explanation should hold up just fine.

“Okay, so how do I make a servitor?”

So here’s where things can get a little weird. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t one super uniform and universally accepted way to do this. Also, there are a few examples [here] [here] of sigils somehow evolving into Servitors all on their own. That said, there are a number of internally consistent methods and ideas that chaos magicians utilize regardless of procedure.

From this, I propose the following general model, which has been pieced together through a combination of my own experience, the experiences of extremely good chaos magicians, resources available in print, and resources available on chaosmatrix for use here:

0. Banish [Banish] [Banish]

1. Decide on a goal and state it out loud with as much conviction and certainty as you can. Classically this is just called the statement of intent, which was and still can be a big deal for old chaos magick rites.

2. Decide on a name for the servitor. Make this something a bit uncommon, such that a friend won’t bop in to your room and accidentally call the name of a thought ghost and ask it to bring them a coke.The necessity of names is a mildly warm take with a lot of discourse surrounding it but I find this to be an important step for a lot of reasons:

names have power, the act of naming someone or something has a ton of weight behind it

it’s an easy way to address and call up the servitor

in the event something goes wrong, names are a classic (some of the oldest “western” magick we know of, seen [here], does this way to gain magical leverage and increase the efficacy of what you’re doing.

3. Make 2 sigils as you learned to do in Oven Ready Chaos. The first one will be just like a normal sigil that you’d make to solve this problem. For example, let’s say you’re making a servitor to draw money. You can use a phrase like “it is my will to more frequently find and acquire usable currency” and turn it into a sigil. The second sigil will be the name of your Servitor. Draw these together at the top of a sheet of paper or make some digital art and put it at the top of a document. Draw a circle around them or superimpose these sigils to link them together graphically.

4. Write what’s called the Contract for your Servitor. This is an actual written document that you create that goes through a few super important things:

a.) The linked sigils of the servitor up at the top (as seen in the last bit of step 3)

b.) A phrase linking the sigils and animating the servitor with a goal. This can read something like “I name you (name): in doing so I give you life. I shape you in the image of (what you want the Servitor to look like, which I’ll get to later): in doing so I give you form”

c.) A specific and detailed description of what you want the Servitor to do

d.) A clause along the lines of “in accomplishing your goals you will not bring harm to any being that I care about” if that’s a thing that matters to you

e.) A “Self destruct procedure” That allows you to destroy the Servitor in a very straightforward way. I’ve heard methods of doing this ranging from putting the contract into a fire to saying a nonsense phrase like “your ship has sailed, and that ship is the banana boat to flavor town. May you deep fry in peace” (I shit you not- if there’s one thing us crusty old chaos magicians have it’s a sense of humor). Whatever you do for this, ensure that the procedure won’t just happen accidentally and leaves no room for ambiguity. Also, quick note, THIS STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS

f.) Some way to link the Servitor to you, if that’s a thing that’s important to the goal.

g.) a method of “feeding” or some way that the Servitor can gain ~energy~ after the fact. This will generally take the form of standard offerings to spirits, such as waiving the contract through incense a few times a month, burning a candle down over the contract every so often, stuff like that. 

5. Astute readers may now realize that we’ve kinda gone through the SPL of SPLIFF, so now naturally we move to the I and the first F (hopefully by now you see that there is a huge amount of cross-over between sigils and servitors, which will be discussed at great length along with egregores and godforms in a later post), Intense Gnosis and Fire. For servitor creation, I have found that you need to much deeper into the gnostic state than for anything you would normally do, which takes a lot of practice and experience (and often, although not strictly necessary, in conjunction with a large quantity of  psychoactive or otherwise mind-altering substances… quick disclaimer, don’t be dumb. I’m just some dude on the internet so don’t be an idiot with what you choose to do here).

6. While in this deep gnostic state, you will strongly visualize the form of the servitor along with the sigils, as mentioned in steps 3 and 4b. Things will generally get weird by now, but just roll with it. along with this visualization, you will “fire” the linked sigils of the servitor.

7. Perform a beefy preliminary feeding in order to further empower the servitor via whatever method you decided upon in step 4g

8. Set then servitor on its merry way and banish super hard.

Now you may notice that I left out the second F in SPLIFF, and this is entirely intentional. It is important that you do not forget about your servitors, or else they may “go rogue”, meaning they may try to subvert your goals in addition to gaining pseudo-sentience which is usually problematic. This can cause a lot of problems later on down the road (astral parasite anyone?), so it’s advised that at the early signs of a servitor going rogue (such as problems with functionality, mild poltergeist activity, problems with feeding, divination telling you something is wrong relation to function or work, etc) to evaluate the contact and the methods of feeding. At this point, if a workable, fast solution does not become apparent, deletion is recommended.

Servitors going rogue is a problem faced by many people when they are beginners, including me back in the day (my former roommate still thinks that the dorm is haunted, sorry bud), but it’s a nice experience to have at some point in terms of learning what to do when magick inevitably explodes in your face and addressing it in an intelligent, workable manor. Plus, how will you ever learn if you don’t try? As always, practice over theory.

So that’s about it for the method, so let’s see what the practice may actually look like.

Let’s say you, a budding chaote, decide that you could use a bit more love in your life. Although you’ve found that sigils are nice for some one-off scenarios like finding a hookup at a club or a bar, you want something a bit longer lasting. 

As such, you decide that a servitor is the right solution for you. 

You decide upon the statement of intent, “It is my will to encounter a compassionate romantic partner” and turn it into a glyph. You also decide on the name FlimFlamZimZam for the servitor and make this into a glyph as well, combining it with the first. You run through the GPR twice to fully banish before the rest of the process. You write up a contract, stating that you want the servitor to function until you enter into a romantic relationship with a caring partner, after which the servitor will cease to exist. You ensure the inclusion of a destruct code, and add your spit atop the combined glyphs to link the servitor to you alone. You also include that you’ll burn a stick of musk incense atop the contract once a week until the task is complete. You then enter a state of intense excitatory gnosis by downing a few caffeine pills and listening to [this] on loop at max volume for an hour or so. You enter the deep, trance-like gnosis, and visualize the servitor atop the seal, shaping it into what you want it to be. After the state winds down, you light some musk as per the contract and banish with the GPR once more. 

Afterwards, you pull a tarot card, asking about the state of the servitor. You draw The World upright, indicating that the servitor is up and at ‘em finding you a partner already. You decide that this is good enough, so you put on your favorite sweater and black skinny jeans, head to your favorite coffee shop, only to have the cute guy from your linguistics seminar sit down next to you, offer to get you a cappuccino, and awkwardly ask you to see a New Primals show later that night. You go to the show and have a complete blast, and enter into a fun little relationship for the rest of the semester.

Hope that this helps out and provides some clarity in the murky world of creating servitors. If you got any questions or just want to talk magick, feel free to drop me an ask or shoot me a DM. 

This has been Chaos Magick 102 of the Chaos Magic for Beginners series, where there will be more posts on a variety of subjects coming soon.

Much Virtue Hath Stones and Herbes

Probably Agrippa

If it's not Agrippa it's the picatrix

If it's not those two it's Pseudo Aristotle

"Something something Divine Feminine"

If it's weirdly horny it's Gardener

Otherwise it's buckland

"Something Something Enoch"

John Dee

Small chance you've found actual kabbalah

The Most Evilest Fucked Up Goth Dark Lord

Anton LaVey

Does it sound Egyptian but weirdly recent?

That's Crowley, or the golden dawn in general

If it's not them good luck lol

What if CORPORATE LOGOS were SPELL

Grant Morrison

Does it sound new agey?

If it involves lost continents or Hinduism it's Blavatsky

If it involves it's got aliens it's Streiber

If it's got aliens and racism it's David Icke

Does it have nazis

If it's real it's Nicholas Goodrick Clarke. You're safe here.

If it's not, it's Savitri Devi and you should put the book down.

If it's well written it's William Blake

If it's well written and German it's Goethe

If it's weird it's basil valentine

If it involves a weird amount of Hebrew and rose imagery it's Rosicrucian

If its wordy as hell but chipper it's Swedenborg

If it keeps talking about native Americans it's Joseph Smith

Something Something Orgone

Ooo, I haven’t had a hexing question in a minute! Let me dust off my best cackle.

Depending on what method you’re using to cast the actual spell, there are several options. If you’re using sympathetic magic through a physical item like a potato or a poppet, thorns or cactus spines are a pretty universal go-to. If you’re using a jar or a bottle, vinegar or eggs (which are left to rot) are also popular. Just don’t keep that one around your house; it’ll stink up the place in a hurry. If you’re using an open-air method, I once heard of a fantastic little curse wherein a piece of paper bearing the target’s name is pinned to an orange, which is then stuck up inside a chimney to rot, taking the person’s health with it. Can’t say I recommend that one for simple pest control reasons, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

But it sounds like you’re more interested in something general or all-purpose. Just a full-spectrum cosmic slap upside the head.

You’re off to a good start with the Cayenne Pepper. That’s my go-to for any sort of hexing. It’s meant to cause discomfort, anxiety, and general pain that’s hard to pin down or get rid of. Most any chili pepper is good for this purpose. I keep small jars of varying types for all occasions. My theory is the hotter the pepper, the more it will hurt. (Do I have a jar of dried Ghost Peppers? Why yes I do.)

Black Mustard Seed is good for general discord, bad luck, or strife. Lemon or Lime seeds are good for bitterness or a general “souring” of situations. Mullein, so often used for sleep magic, can bring nightmares. (Most effective when soaked in vinegar first.) Lemon Grass, Nettle, Paprika, and Wormwood all bring generalized strife when applied to hex blends.

Or, if you’re in the business of backhanded blessings, simply mix up the nicest blessing mix you can put together, the exact OPPOSITE of what you wish for this person, and then add Ash of Roses and burnt Cinquefoil to create an inverse effect. This method is a little trickier, but it’s a good thing to keep in your back pocket if you’re running low on supplies.

If anyone is interested, I have a longer list of plants for baneful magic listed by purpose in the back of Grovedaughter Witchery. Always Practice Safe Hex by cleansing and shielding yourself before and after casting, and remember to close those loopholes!

Rule 0: Your decoy will be destroyed. If not by taking strikes meant for you, then by you when its time to move on. It is imperative that what you use for/on your decoy is environmentally safe and is disposed of in a way that does not poison the land and waters around it. So if you must use plastics, don’t bury them! Recycle them preferably, proper landfill trash if nothing else. (Or try not to use plastics unless necessary.) Consider how to incorporate the disposal methods into the working.

In all these suggestions, the actual working steps involved is left up to the reader to work out. One size does not fit all. Customize to your satisfaction.

What is your decoy? Stone? Paper craft? An unglazed clay jar? A glazed ceramic jar? Or even a glass jar? All these items are going to be disposed of in different ways, so keep that in mind as you start making the thing smell more you than you.

Speaking of smell, then a very light perfuming, or a smidge of your favorite antiperspirant/deodorant, or a drop of scented soap/gel can be used to make the decoy more you than you. You don’t have to complete douse the thing, just let it share your scent.

Do you smoke? Blow smoke over the decoy. Do you tend to get ashes on yourself? Rub a bit onto the decoy. Do you smell like cinnamon and nutmeg because of your job? Yup. Add that too. Whatever you smell like, give the decoy the same scent. If your decoy can withstand it, rub some body odor on it. (But, be safe. It doesn’t belong there, there, or over there unless it was made for such purposes. Don’t risk an infection trying to set this up.)

Use makeup? Draw on the decoy. Use runes, sigils, and/or personal markings? Get to it. Avoid the use of paints, or large quantities of ink if possible. Especially if you are going to dispose of the decoy by burial or waterway.

Carry the decoy (or the objects you’re placing in jars) for a few days so it can pick up various “energetic” associations connected with you. Why the quote marks? Because what one person would call energetic, another would call astral, and another would call soul-contamination, and I can’t keep up with all these new fangled terms so I’m just going to throw one out there and keep going.

Give it a good rub every now and then. Make some gesture and/or statement that reinforces that the decoy is associated with you. But don’t think of it as a pet (rock). This sucker is going to take an arrow to the knee for you. No emotional attachments!

I’d give it about three days of steady dunking in your personal aura before I would consider it ready for deployment. Where you place your decoy is dependent on what you’re trying to avoid, and why. If it’s decent looking enough, you can have it out in plain sight. Which makes it easy to check for signs of strikes, or if it is time to dispose of it.

If you are worried about something coming through the mirror, place the decoy in front of it. Doorway? Knick-knack table next to it. Property boundary? Marked stones can be buried there. Still don’t trust that spirit board and/or tarot deck despite all that has been reblogged about the topic of mass-produced cardboard? Plop that decoy right on top of it.

How many decoys to use, and where to place them in relation to you is something that you will have to answer for yourself. A good way to figure it out is to pretend you have an evil twin from another dimension that wants to replace you. How would they attack you. There are your decoy points.

Check your decoy often. If it is showing signs of degrading, breaking, discoloration, unusual odors, or movements that can not be accounted for, then it’s time to let it go.

Break the connection between the decoy and you before disposing, if desired. Rock? Douse it with water. Paper? Burn it or soak it in water. Glass jar or glazed ceramic jar? Fill it with water. (If already filled with liquid, pour out that liquid in a safe and responsible manner, then fill the jar again.) Unglazed clay or other porous container? Dunk it in a bucket of water.

(I’m quite fond of clean water as a cleansing and neutralizing tool, if you haven’t noticed. If your worldview varies, use what is appropriate for you. Just don’t burn down the garage, okay. Be safe.)

If you are reusing the jars, give them a good scrub out with salt and/or water. Rocks can be buried, or thrown in waterways if they won’t bring any problems to the receiving waterway. Paper can be recycled, or thrown away responsibly. But don’t contaminate watersheds with diluted paints, or use liquids that will harm the wildlife when they come to investigate it. Be responsible.

Emergency decoys: Spit on it.

Let’s say you walked into the wrong neighborhood, and the local spirits are not too happy about it. They’re on your ass and won’t let you leave without a fight. You’re trying to get away, but the damn darts keep coming.

Pick up a handful of pebbles or small rocks and spit on them. Throw them in various directions behind and to the side of your direction of travel. Then cover your head and depart with quickness.

This has been my emergency “why can’t Stealth be real” procedure and so far it’s worked for me. As long as the spit on the rocks are wet and undiluted, the decoy is effective. Once the spit dries out, I’m now the brightest blip on the radar again.

In other words, this does not work in the desert nor in pouring rain. I also have found this out the hard way.

Blood? No. I want to strongly advise to never use blood for a decoy, but I can not back up that advice with anything other than personal observations and an acknowledgement that it really comes down to how the working person views blood in the first place. But personally, I would never use blood for a decoy unless I was 1,850% sure that I would have complete control over that decoy at all times and that I would be the one to destroy it. And by destroy, I mean pulverize/burn that shit to nothing.

If you have read this far, keep in mind that this is all based on personal experiences and “Oh Shit!” circumstances. I am not a teacher. Not an expert. Have read no books on the subject that I would consider better than what I have found on the Internet. I can not tailor a specialized plan for you, because I do not know you, your circumstances, or what you are trying to dodge. It would take much more than a few asks/responses to sort that out.

If someone is out to get you and they have physical access to you, then these decoys are going to do jacque shitte at best, and at worst can be used against you.

Name means: Masculine form of ‘Ashtart’

Also known as: The Fierce, the Terrible, the Awesome One, the Lion

Parents: El and Asherah

Siblings: Ashtart, Anat, Yamm, Mot

Abode: The Heavens

Animals: Lions, oryx antelope

Planet: Venus

Equated to foreign deities: Ashtabi, Zababa, Anhur

Description:

Ashtar is a warlike deity, his astral associations being with Venus as the Morning Star.  His name is equivalent to Ashtart, and like her, he shares these martial attributes and astrological associations.  He also is said to rule irrigation, a means of fertilising the earth for agriculture.  In this aspect, he contrasts heavily with Baal Hadad, who rules the rains and storms.

He is the ‘young lion’, a virile warrior and favourite of his mother Asherah.  In the myths from Ugarit, he was chosen by her to replace Baal while he was in the underworld.  However, he was too young/small to sit on Baal’s throne, and so was forced to abdicate.  This serves to show how his irrigation was viewed by the people of Ugarit as an inferior means of watering the crops as compared to Baal’s life-giving rains.  In other areas, this view of Ashtar is a mere boy too young to govern does not hold; in Moab, Ashtar was seen as a strong youth and powerful smiter, his name being connected with the chief god Chemosh as Ashtar-Chemosh.  In any case, he is ruler over the irrigation canals that water fields.

As a warrior, he smites his enemies with his mace.  Riding into battle on his lion mount, he strikes at the enemies of the king and of the gods.

Khirkhib initially wanted his daughter Nikkal to marry Ashtar, but eventually Yerikh persuaded him to change his view.

The Seven Dedications unto Exile

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Alright, I'm breaking character for this one because it involves me personally.

Again, as far as I know, saying tarot is endemic to romani culture is akin to saying moneylending is endemic to jewish culture.

As far as I am aware, the roma are not the only people to divine with tarot cards, and they did not invent the practice.

And again, the author of this blog is ethnically Romani. Although I am fairly isolated from the culture, I have access to people who aren’t. When I asked my culturally romani family members about this, they said they had never heard of this concept.

Now, that doesn’t inherently mean I am correct. I am completely open to the fact that I may be wrong about this. However, it does mean that I am going to have to ask for proof beyond “I saw some people say this somewhere“ because as far as I know, the earliest citation for romani people using tarot for divination people is from Elphias Levi’s Key of Mysteries (1861), and the earliest citation for divinatory tarot as we know it was from by Jean-Baptiste Alliette in approximately 1780, when he and Antoine Court published a guide for performing cartomancy with the Tarot of Marseilles.

Additionally, philosopher and tarot historian Michael Dummett noted, in his book The Game of Tarot. "it was only in the 1780s, when the practice of fortune-telling with regular playing cards had been well established for at least two decades, that anyone began to use the tarot pack for cartomancy.”

Yes, the Roma people did read tarot for work, especially when there weren’t many other jobs available to them. No, they did not invent the practice. Occultists in Europe did, several centuries after the oldest tarot cards we know about were made and spread across Europe as a card game (the oldest deck is from like 14th century Italy for a game called tarrochi, and in the 16th century, the Marseilles deck spread through Europe by the thousands as a game deck which at the time was called tarau, but I could have spelled that wrong)

In the 1780s, there was a revisionist movement among Occultists to find the “secret origins” of tarot which would unlock the secrets of the universe (sourced from Robert M Place’s the Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination). This meant that every popular and mystical worldview/belief system at the time, including Kabbalah and Hermeticism, were attributed to tarot, and the Roma people were believed to have brought the decks to Europe from Egypt (which, as I mentioned...isn’t true). The cards ARE believed to be descended from Chinese money cards (in the same family of games as Mahjong) and Arabic Mamlûk cards, but those were introduced to Europe WAY before tarot was used for divination

Do Roma people have their own traditions and practices regarding tarot? Probably. I’ve heard that from at least one person claiming to be a Roma tarot reader. But I don’t know for sure because if those traditions do exist, they would be closed to me so I wouldn’t have access to them. The cards themselves are not closed, though

If you want books recs to start looking at the history of tarot, Place’s book that I mentioned is great, as is Paul Huson’s Mystical Origins of the Tarot

Obviously not all of her posts are here, I’ve just saved the ones I thought were of more interest to me and others. These posts (except for one not rescued by me) are made private for legal reasons. I might update if specific blogs are requested.

Note: the links will not work on the Tumblr app. You must visualize them either through the desktop or your phone’s web browser. If still a link isn’t working, let me know.