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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in spellwork
Center Yourself with the Help of a Little Candle Magic

The best way to prepare for personal ritual is to center yourself. I call this “doing a readjustment,” and I believe this is especially important in our overscheduled and busy world. Doing a readjustment helps pull you back into yourself and gets your priorities back on track. Only when you are truly centered can you do the true inner work of self-development that is at the core of ritual. Centering takes many forms. Experiment on your own to find out what works best for you. One excellent way to center is to light a candle and meditate on it. By focusing on the flame, you bring your being and awareness into focus. You can take this a step further with this spell for new insight into your life.

Step 1: Place one candle on your altar or “centering station.” Light your favorite meditation incense. For me, nag champa immediately sanctifies any space and creates a sacred aura.

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How to Set Intentions for a Ritual of Your Own Design

When creating your own ritual, or performing any spellwork, for that matter, you must approach it with a definite concentration, so try to eliminate any distractions clogging up your sacred space. If a nagging worry is hovering in the back of your mind, you are not properly focused. You may even want to perfect an image of your intention and desire with creative visualization.

Part of your preparation should also include using ritual correspondences—the phase of the moon, the day of the week, the color of the candles you use, and much more. These things add to the depth and meaning of your ritual. Do you need to clear the energy and refresh your altar with some housecleaning? Do so and continue to focus on your intention as you create the foundation for a successful ceremony. While you are clearing energy in your space, you must also clear out the clutter in your mind. If you are in a state of inner chaos, the outcome will simply not measure up to your expectations. Perhaps it will help you relax if you listen to instrumental music or sacred chants. Conscious breathing or stretching will also help you make yourself ready for ritual. Constructing your inner temple is a marvelous process that can aid in your journey deep inside yourself.

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Making Magic with Crystals and Gems

Gems are powerful tools that can pave the way for a better life for you. There is a long history of the use of gems, stones, and crystals as amulets, symbols, charms, and jewelry in magic. These myriad stones can really enrich your life in so many ways. In the next chapter, you will learn how to make your own magical gem and crystal jewelry and how to charge the stones you already own with supernatural power.  

Do you want to get a new job? Jade jewelry magic will do the trick! Need to get over a heartbreak? A chrysocolla heart-healing spell will soothe your soul. Are you an author suffering from the dreaded writer’s block? A creativity crystal incantation is exactly what you need. 

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Retson Retap, or: A Spell Against the Power of the Book

My next-door neighbor's husband is losing it.

A retired Baptist minister, his mental decline expresses itself in the form of public preaching to no one in particular. Sunday afternoon, while sitting on the front porch pitting cherries (pagan hands are never still), I listened with half an ear as he circled the block haranguing an unlistening and uncaring world about Sin, Salvation, and the Bible.

Generally I find public preaching noisome, but in this case what witches call ruth—compassion—wins out. He's not hurting anyone, and we all need to feel like we're doing something important in the world.

Besides, 20 years from now, that could be me out there, haranguing an uncaring and unlistening world about the Craft, the Horned One, and what it means to be a real pagan.

In some ways, the two of us—deeply religious people in a culture increasingly non-religious—have a lot in common.

 

The Deitsch people of Eastern Pennsylvania recognize a state of being that they call being “read fast.”

To be read fast is to become so obsessed with a particular book that one is driven to read and quote from it constantly, to the neglect of other aspects of one's life.

Among the Deitsch, the danger of becoming read fast is frequently associated with the classic grimoire the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, but experience readily suggests the term's potential for a wider applicability. Part of the danger of books—and, in particular, of book-driven ideologies—is their potential to possess—utterly and destructively—a soul.

Fortunately, there's an out.

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    Is that why pagans accumulate their own libraries? So that no single book has a chance to take them over?

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Domino Luck Spell

The beauty of pop culture magick is that inspiration can come from anywhere.  Any movie you watch, book you read, or gif you scroll past can end up giving you the perfect magickal mechanism for your next spell.  Just yesterday I was watching Deadpool 2 and though to myself, “Wow, Domino would be awesome to work with in a luck spell.”  So I did.

For those of you who have not enjoyed the absurd awesomeness that is Deadpool 2 or read the comics, let me introduce you to Domino.  She is a kick-ass mutant with the power to alter probability to work in her favor and against her opponents.  Basically, she’s lucky.  Very lucky.  That luck allows her to always be in the right place at the right time and for virtually every situation to work out in her favor.  Who better to work with in a luck spell?

There are two important things that pop culture magick can add to a working: 1) personal connection, and 2) added power.  For many people our connection to our favorite pop culture stories and characters is far stronger than our connection to ancient myths or centuries old practices.  Our personal energies are already deeply entwined with our favorite media, so using it in magick links that magick to us even more deeply.  Further, pop culture is something we live immersed in every day.  By adding it to a spell we bring the resonance of that spell into the currents of our everyday lives, so the magicky doesn’t have as far to go to be effective.  It also taps into the vast energetic reserve of fandoms and links that energy to our intent.  Pop culture magick helps our workings to resonate more deeply with our personal energies, allows for greater energetic efficiency, and adds power.

For this spell I chose to modify an existing sweetening spell that I already do each week.  Sweetening spells are part of the Hoodoo and Southern conjure traditions, designed to bring ease, good fortune, and lessen obstacles in a given situation.  For my original spell I would, each Sunday:

  • Put a small jar of honey (used exclusively for this weekly spell) on my altar
  • Take a small taste of the honey and say, “As this honey is sweet, so shall the world be sweet to me.”
  • Light a yellow or gold chime candle and place it on the lid of the honey jar and let it burn until naturally extinguished.


Altering my traditional spell into a pop culture spell was just a matter of changing my incantation and adding a simulacrum of Domino in the form of a Funko Pop figure.  My new incantation is, “Domino, Lady of Luck, bring me good fortune.  Guide me to make good choices and to be in the right place at the right time.  Eliminate all obstacles in my path.  As probability is sweet to you, so shall it be sweet to me.”  The rest of the spell is unchanged.

A few simple alterations and additions can turn just about any traditional spell into pop culture magick.  By adding pop culture that is personally meaningful you can strengthen your connection to a spell as well as adding power.  Always be open to the possibility of magickal inspiration and you will find what you need. 

More information on Domino
http://deadpool.wikia.com/wiki/Domino
https://www.bustle.com/p/in-the-deadpool-comics-domino-had-entirely-different-relationship-with-wade-9102254

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Poppy Power Money Magic

The San Francisco Bay Area is magical in spring and summer, with a profusion of poppies growing along the highway and in every available crevice. No wonder California is one of the wealthiest places in the world. We pagans revere poppies for their money magic. If you have a yard, meadow, or any strip of ground you can garden, buy poppy seeds and simply toss them all around. Months later, you will have a wealth of wildflowers.

 

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Pop Culture Kitchen Witchery

I cook and I know things.  I love being in the kitchen as much as I love watching my favorite movies, reading my favorite books, and making magick.  However, as a busy person what I love best is finding clever ways to combine those things into a single action in order to save time and energy.  Oh yes, I do pop culture kitchen witchery.  Let me share with you how I make fun and nourishing treats infused with pop culture magick.

There are nearly limitless ways to infuse magick into cookery.  One can choose foods with inherently magickal ingredients; many common herbs and spices have powerful magickal correspondences.  Think of the basil, garlic, and fennel in many traditional pasta sauces and their inherently protective qualities.  Once can also compose a meal based on the color correspondences of the ingredients; perhaps an all green meal for prosperity.  Add baking to your repertoire and you have the option of shaping cookies and breads into magickal symbols that are charge when baking and released when eaten.  Of course one can, and should, always add their intent as they create their food; better still if it’s something like bread where intent can be literally kneaded into the dough.  These are just a few of the wondrous ways to add magick in the kitchen and there are plenty of resources out there for diving into the rabbit hole that is kitchen witchery.  Of course, being the inveterate nerd that I am I take things a step further.

I like to get as much bang for my magickal buck as possible and much of my stand-alone magickal workings involve pop culture magick, so I decided to bring my kitchen witchery and pop culture magick together to supercharge them.  One of the easiest ways to add pop culture magick to kitchen witchery is to make foods that appear in your favorite pop culture media, such as lembas bread from the Lord of the Rings, butterbeer from Harry Potter, or fish fingers and custard from Doctor Who.  Lembas bread is a great example; it’s already a magickal food, giving the consumer hours of energy from a single bite.  By baking a high-energy bread or energy bar and infusing it with the magickal energy of lembas bread you can create an amazing spell for stamina energy that you can take along on a hike, a long drive, or any day where you know you’ll need a boost.  Pop culture is filled with enchanted provisions and iconic foodstuffs from Alice’s tea cakes to wizarding chocolate.  Take a moment to think about the iconic foods in your favorite pop culture media and the many ways they could potentially be used in magick.  Kind of amazing isn’t it?

You can also create an infinite variety of foods themed for and inspired by pop culture media.  Kitchen Overlord has a wonderful recipe for a pasta dish where the end product looks like Tony Stark’s arc reactor that would be a fantastic base for a prosperity spell.  As you stir your pasta add your intent, let the golden color of the wheat pasta symbolize prosperity, and link to the dish to the energy of Tony Stark’s wealth; take it further by adding a few herbs that both taste great and correspond appropriately like thyme and basil.  In doing so you’re using the color and magickal correspondences of your ingredients, adding intent directly through the cooking process, and taking advantage of the prosperity energy associated with the character - that’s a triple charged spell and dinner in one!  Similarly, you could make Super Mario Brothers stuffed 1-UP mushrooms infused with energy to ace a test or job interview.  Get a few crimini mushrooms, stuff them with ingredients that align with your goals (Google stuffed mushrooms, there are hundreds of recipes for inspiration), charge them as they cook, and consume to seal the spell.  The possibilities for this type of magick are limited only by your imagination and what ingredients are available.

Beyond crafting edible spells, you can also create foods as offerings to pop culture entities.  Like any other metaphysical entity, pop culture entities often require an offering in exchange for their magickal assistance and what better offering than a food they're known to enjoy?  If you were doing a working with Dean from Supernatural it would be a no-brainer to bake him a pie.  If, for whatever reason, you wanted to do a working with Deadpool what better offering than chimichangas?  Taking the time and effort to make a food offering from scratch adds a tremendous amount of personal energy that many other offerings lack and it allows you to add specific energies into that offering.  You can add even more energy by mindfully sourcing your ingredients: making extra effort to get the highest quality ingredients, buying from merchants the character would support, etc.  If you have a special working that requires a little more “oomph” for your offering, or you just enjoy cooking, try making something appropriate from scratch. 

If you want to try your hand at some pop culture kitchen witchery I suggest starting with simple rolled sugar cookies.  If you like to cook you can make the dough from scratch; if you don’t like to cook you can buy pre-made dough at any grocery store.  You can find some amazing pop culture themed cookie cutters online or you can cut custom shapes freehand.  Try D20 shaped cookies for luck, tardis shaped cookies for adventurous travel, or R2-D2 shaped cookies for computer skills, etc. As you roll out and shape your dough allow your intent to flow into the dough itself.  Bake the cookies per your recipe and then continue to infuse magick into the cookies as you decorate.  Add icing, sprinkles, or crystal sugars in the colors and designs that correspond to your intent.  If you’re more of an advanced baker try making emoji macarons.  Infuse your macarons with positive emotions to create an edible energetic boost.  In general, cookies are easy, quick, and versatile, making them a fabulous starting point for pop culture kitchen witchery.

Whether you’re making Game of Thrones kidney pie or Welcome to Night Vale’s not-so-invisible corn, pop culture kitchen witchery can enhance your magick and put dinner on the plate to boot.  Combining pop culture magick with more traditional kitchen witchery you get all the benefits of traditional practice while layering more intent and meaning into your working, giving it extra power with very little extra time and energy.  Make the results of that magick dinner and you’ve made the most efficient possible use your your limited time and energy.  If you enjoy cooking or baking and love pop culture then give pop culture kitchen witchery a try. 

There are many websites and cookbooks dedicated to recipes from and inspired by pop culture.  Here are a few resources:

http://www.geekychef.com/
https://theniftynerd.com/category/recipes/
http://www.geekyhostess.com/
http://rosannapansino.com/
http://watch.geniuskitchen.com/show/GKPCB/Pop-Culture-Baking-Class/

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