Bhasttet - BHASTTET

How to Cast Spells That Work

In her book Wicca for Beginners Thea Sabin says, “When you do a spell, you are telling the universe that you intend to bring about a certain change and you are putting the energy in motion to achieve that end.”

A spell is sort of an energetic shove to get things moving in the way you want them to, and we do this by creating a ritual to build and then release the energy to get things going.

Most spells are based on a principle called imitative magic.

In his book Backwoods Shamanism, Ray Hess says, “Imitative magic means that making a symbolic gesture, when combined with intent and will… can affect the intended change on a grander scale.” [Note: I don’t actually recommend this book, but I like Hess’s definition of imitative magic.]

So, for example, you may have heard of a “cord cutting” ritual, where you symbolically cut your spiritual ties to a person you no longer want to have a relationship with. You’re symbolically creating a separation between yourself and that person, which creates physical separation in real life.

There are four basic components to any spell: your will, your intention, focused energy, and a ritual action. Some magical traditions add extra steps, like casting a circle, but from what I’ve read and been taught, these four basic components are constant no matter which tradition you’re following.

Let’s start with the most important bit: your will. Your will isn’t just what you want: it’s the desire and drive that is in alignment with your highest good. But in this case we’re also talking about will in the sense of willpower — Basically, your will is your personal spiritual authority and the source of your magical power.

Any spell that is not in alignment with your will won’t work. This is why it’s important to be clear about what you want and why you want it before you attempt a spell.

There’s also an element of belief here. Because magic only works when your spells are in alignment with your will, if you don’t believe your spell can work, it won’t. This is because you, yourself are blocking it from working.

The second important component of a  spell is your intention. When you do a spell, it’s important to clearly state what you want to happen. Some traditions will write the intention down on a piece of paper, which is called a petition. Other traditions will use a spoken statement of intention in the form of an incantation. Some witches use both.

You need to be clear about your intention before you begin your spell. Magic will always follow the path of least resistance, so it’s important to be specific. However, I find that magic works better when your intention leaves a little bit of wiggle room. It’s about finding that happy medium.

You also want to keep your petitions and incantations simple. If it’s more than a couple of sentences, you probably need to trim it down a little.

The next important part of a spell is focused energy. Magic is a way of directing energy, and this means that your own energy needs to be focused for it to work.

Don’t get too stressed out about focus. Your spell isn’t going to fail if your mind wanders for a few seconds. But you should set aside some time where you’ll be able to fully dedicate yourself to your spell. Try to find a private place where you won’t be interrupted. Turn off the TV, put your phone away, and try to avoid distractions. You might find that playing meditation music or burning incense helps you focus.

While you cast your spell, keep focusing on what it is you want to manifest. Again, don’t overthink this and don’t worry if your thoughts wander a little, but try to stay in the moment. Repeating your incantation can help with maintaining focus.

The last important part of a spell is your ritual action. This just means doing a specific set of things, in a specific order, with a specific intent behind them. If we go back to our definition of imitative magic, your ritual actions are symbolic of the change you want to manifest.

Your ritual actions do not have to be complex. A very common ritual for spells is anointing and lighting a candle. Making a charm or poppet is also popular. But any action can be a magical ritual if it is done with intent and focus, in alignment with your will. Making a cup of tea or coffee can be a ritual. Running a bath can be a ritual. Cooking food can be a ritual. The only limit is your imagination.

These four things are literally all you need to cast a spell. A spell doesn’t have to be complicated or include a bunch of crystals and herbs to work. You can do an effective spell with nothing but your own mind and body.

Beauty Tips for The Sexy Witch

• eat citrus fruits or drink fruit water as an alternative to mints. Fruit, especially sour fruit, promotes salivation, which helps to fight off bacteria in your mouth that causes bad breath. adding some strawberry, lemon, and kiwi slices to a bottle of water is a great way to keep your breath sweet.

• Next time you make guacamole, save the pit of the avocado, dry it, and keep it in your purse or on your person. Avocado pits are deeply symbolic of sex, lust, love, and beauty, and can help to attract romance. This symbolism dates back to the ancient aztecs, who named the avocado, “ahacatl,” or “green testicle.”

• Dilute a few drops of pomegranate and rose oil in a teaspoon of coconut oil, and massage this into your neck, chest, and behind your ears as a perfume. The scent is light, seductive, and easy on your partner’s taste buds when they go in to leave a few hickies. Plus, the coconut oil will leave your skin silky smooth and soft.

• Make some DIY jewelry out of wire and river pearl beads. Strings of river pearls can be found at most craft stores; they’re quite cheap, but just as natural and magical as expensive round pearls. Pearls are associated with beauty and sensuality, as well as corresponding to the moon and Venus. They carry a soft energy that promotes both romantic and sexual activity. Red jasper, rose quartz, and rhodochrosite are also good.

• Rosewater. I know so many witches AND non-witches rave over rosewater, but the hype is for good reason. Using rosewater as an astringent facial mist is a refreshing and sensual finishing touch to your date night beauty routine. Rose energy enhances your beauty, and the barely noticeable scent will entice your partner to come a little closer.

• strawberries are a natural aphrodisiac. A stick or container of strawberry lip balm can easily be enchanted to make your lips look naturally ravishing with some rose quartz, red jasper, and a pink candle. Bonus points if it’s pink or red tinted.

• Body glitter!! I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but as someone who doesn’t often wear makeup, I like to find new and exciting ways to glamourize my look without it. Moisturizing body bars and sprays can be found at stores like lush, (the shimmy shimmy bar is my fave,) or online. You can also make your own with some coconut oil, beeswax, essential and fragrance oils, and skin safe seaweed based glitter. I use body glitter as an extra kick to beauty glamours, and a physical reminder of how magically delicious I look.

That’s all I have for now, but if you have any of your own tips please feel free to add on! Much love and good luck to you all 💕

The Ethics of Witchcraft

Before you begin practicing witchcraft, it’s a good idea to establish a set of ethical guidelines for your magical practice. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the big ethical debates/controversies within witchy communities.

When you’re talking about ethics in witchcraft, it’s kind of impossible to get around Wicca. Even though not all witches are Wiccans, a lot of people are introduced to witchcraft through Wicca, and a lot of these people still follow Wiccan ethics in their craft, even if they don’t identify as Wiccan.

Wiccan ethics can be summed up with a single phrase, which is called the Wiccan Rede. The Rede states: “An it harm none, do as you will.”

Some people interpret the Rede to mean “If it harms none, do what you want.” I personally think this is a little over simplified. The key to understanding the Rede is understanding the difference between “want” and “will.”

In her book Wicca For Beginners, Thea Sabin says, “Want is about earthly things, both trivial and important. Your will, however, is the force that drives you to your ultimate spiritual goal. It transcends want. It’s the thing that Joseph Campbell is referring to when he says, ‘Follow your bliss.’ Campbell’s ‘bliss’ is the inner knowing that puts you on the life path that will lead you to your highest mundane and spiritual purpose.”

So your “will” isn’t just the things you want: it’s your hearts’ desires that are in alignment with your highest good.

Because of this, a better interpretation of the Wiccan Rede would be “If it harms none, do what is in alignment with your higher purpose.” I think this is a great guiding principle for any magical practice, whether you identify as Wiccan or not.

A lot of witches who follow the Wiccan Rede also believe in a concept called the Threefold Law. The Threefold Law states that whatever you put out into the world will come back to you three times.

Some people interpret this to mean that whatever you put out into the world will come back to you three times as strong. Others think it means that whatever you put out will come back to you on three levels: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Either way, the concept is the same: whatever you put out into the universe will find its way back to you in some form.

Even if they don’t believe in the Threefold Law, a lot of witches believe in a similar concept called karma, which comes from Hinduism. In his book Many, Many, Many Gods of Hinduism, Swami Acuthananda says: “The law of karma states that your thoughts, words, and actions — good and bad — circle back to determine your future. Simply put, you are responsible for your own actions. If you plant goodness, you will reap goodness, but if you plant evil, it will come back and hurt you. It is the universal principle of cause and effect.”

The Threefold Law and karma are similar concepts. No matter which one they resonate with, many witches believe that what they put out into the world will eventually come back to them. This is why a lot of witches choose only to do positive or constructive magic, and it’s why many witches don’t perform curses or hexes, because they don’t want that negativity coming back to them.

However, there ARE witches who do not follow the Wiccan Rede or believe in karma, and there ARE witches who cast curses and hexes. For example, Hoodoo is one magic tradition that doesn’t include any of these concepts, and many Hoodoo practitioners have no problem with destructive magic like curses. But at the same time, a lot of Hoodoo practitioners believe that a spell won’t work unless it is justified — so a curse won’t be effective unless the target deserves it. It really depends on the beliefs and morals of the practitioner. [Note: Hoodoo is a closed tradition. I am mentioning it in this post as a real world example of a pro-cursing magic system, but you do not have to practice Hoodoo to be pro-cursing.]

Cursing has a very long history all over the world. In Ancient Egypt, doctor-magicians treated patients by cursing the disease that was making them sick. In Ancient Rome, people would write curses on stone or lead tablets and bury them in the ground to ask the gods or spirits to carry out the curse — this is another case where the curse would only work if the gods felt it was justified. In ancient Ireland, poets could create a satire of someone, which was essentially a way of calling them out for doing something wrong. If the satire was true, it could cause blisters on the face of the person being satirized, or even cause their death. If the satire was not true, the curse would be directed back on the poet.

In most of these historical cases, it again seems like curses were only believed to work if the target deserved them, and there were serious consequences for cursing an innocent person. These are all things to keep in mind when deciding if you want to include cursing and other destructive magic in your practice.

Cursing is one of the biggest ethical debates in witchcraft, but there are others. Another big debate is whether or not it’s okay to do spells on other people.

A lot of witches choose not to do any magic that might violate another person’s free will. For example, a lot of witches will not do a love spell on a specific person. You can do a spell to attract a partner, or even to attract a certain type of person, but using magic to make someone specific fall in love with you violates that person’s free will.

For me, personally, consent is really important. If I want to do a spell for a friend or family member, even if it’s a helpful, positive spell, I only do it if they’ve asked me to or if I’ve gotten their permission. This way I know that my magic isn’t going against what they want.

Other witches feel like it’s okay to do helpful magic for other people without telling them about it. Most religious people don’t ask permission to pray for their loved ones, so some witches feel like they don’t need to ask permission to do positive spells for others. Again, it really depends on your personal ethics, but I’m of the opinion that it’s always best to have informed consent from everyone involved.

Of course, all of this is assuming that you choose to keep your witchcraft practice separate from your religious or spiritual practices. There are witches who choose to incorporate their spiritual beliefs into their magical practice. We’ve already talked about Wiccan ethics. A Christian witch will follow Christian ethics in their magic. An Muslim witch will follow Muslim ethics. A Buddhist witch will follow Buddhist ethics. And so on.

Before you start doing spellwork, you need to sit down and figure out your personal ethics. I recommend literally writing out a set of rules or guidelines for your ethical magical practice, before you ever cast a spell. You can refer back to those rules whenever you encounter an ethical question in your craft.

Let’s Talk Poppets & Spell Dolls!👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏽

hollywood has massively misrepresented poppets and spell dolls as a form of evil/baneful magick (the Voodoo Doll), however, this is often far from the truth about poppet magick!

the use of poppets and spell dolls is a sympathetic form of magick which ties a magick focus or object with a soul, to an inanimate object. people use rag dolls, ceramics, photos, paper cut outs, and even animals as poppets for humans.

however i use ceramic figures! usually when i make a poppet it is used to protect or nurture a loved figure in my life. i place crystals near the poppet depending on what the person represented by the doll needs, carry the poppet in my company for lonelier friends, or i may even do spellwork involving the doll for bigger issues.

to bind a poppet to a person, use hair, belongings (scraps of clothing belonging to your subject can be stuffed inside of stitched dolls, as can topical herbs), or even just the initials or birthdate of the person will do. i paint these details on the back of the poppet.

remember if you use a poppet to do any sort of magick on a friend, it is best to ask the friend first! otherwise using a poppet may end up being controlling or an unwanted magickal intervention.

heres how i make my ceramic dolls:

I use a cheap air-drying clay called “DAS”. You can use as much or little as you like, just be aware the the bigger you make your poppet, the longer it will take to dry.

Roll your clay roughly into a potato shaped ball, and working quickly (air-drying clay dries and becomes difficult to work with fast!) snip along the dotted lines pictured above! when you pull the sniped sectors away from eachother, you should get a ugly looking body-ish shape with a bulbous head. but with some pinching and squeezing, the body will quickly become prettier.

Once you have squeezed the clay into shape, you should end up with some very simple silhouetted human shapes. I smooth the clay out using my fingers (not with any water) on the front and the back of the poppet. In 24-48 hours the poppets should be fully dry and ready for painting.

i paint the skin of the doll whatever colour i want and then give it a heart, sigils, a face, a belly button, and the name and birthdate of the person represented by the poppet on the back. i also make a few plain ones at a time so i always have some ready to use. (the paint i use is water-based acrylic paint).

i hope this is helpful to some people! i put a little extra effort into this post. don’t forget that you don’t have to make people shaped poppets! if you’re making a poppet for an animal, they would be super cute as animal shaped <3

사슴 신✨

Dios venado 🌟

Areas of Research for the Intermediate Witch

When you’ve covered all the basics, the next step is to pick some topics and study them in-depth. Take notes, whether they are online or by hand, and find creative ways to incorporate what you’ve learned into your practice. With depth of knowledge comes depth of understanding, and that will make you a stronger witch. Here are some ideas/topics to get started:

Mesopotamian magic (especially the role of astrology in Mesopotamia)

Go through each of the Sabbats and write down a summary of how they came about. What is their history, purpose and associated mythology?

Hermeticism and its influence on Western magic

The first recorded spells and incantations (hint: they were in ancient Sumer)

Who was Zoroaster?

John Dee and Enochian magic

Freemasonry

The Golden Dawn

The Salem Witch Trials, and how they affected legislation on, and public perception of, witchcraft

Carl Gustav Jung and his work on the connections between psychology and alchemy

Crystal elixirs

Shadow work

Mythology from a variety of cultures - you’re probably familiar with Zeus and Ra, but how much do you know about Ranginui and Papatuanuku? Knowing a variety of mythologies, whether you follow them or not, can help you better understand the deities you work with.

Other religions! It’s the same as mythologies - the more you know, the better.

Buddhist philosophy

Reiki

The fae

Botany - if you can, try to research the plants in your region, and devise correspondences for plants you can find in your local area based on their physical or medicinal properties. Just make sure to be mindful of local/native cultures if there are any.

Make a dream journal, and write down whatever you can remember about your dreams (don’t worry if it’s hard at first, the more you write them down the better you’ll get at remembering). Research possible dream meanings of any dreams that stand out to you!

Astrology, if you’re not already familiar with it. Astrology originated in ancient Mesopotamia as one of the first forms of divination, and as a result is the basis of a lot of magic today.

The natural world. The metaphysical is important but perhaps more so is the world to which it is attached. I’d recommend watching nature documentaries for this one.

Cover all your bases. If there’s a witchcraft 101 area that you never fully learned, now’s the time. Things like grounding, centering, circle casting, meditation, warding, visualisation… these are all important foundations that you need before you can try to build on your knowledge.

Agrippa

Sleeping Beauty (1959)