I do not doubt for one moment the existence of witches.
I know many, and some are great friends.
When I was young I bought a book from a old store called The Abbey in Elizabeth, NJ, as I was waiting for my dad to finish taking pictures of some local characters. This was no Barnes and Noble. There were books from floor to ceiling, in boxes, in barely-lit back rooms, and in bookcases that covered every inch of wall space. Wavy glass let the light into the front of the store, and the original light fixtures and scrolly woodwork gave the store a slightly ominous feel.
Although not labeled, my favorite section was in a corner and thankfully low enough to the ground for a little girl to view. As wide as my arms could span, this section would be called OCCULT in today's bookstores--but unlike today's bookstores, held copies of dusty and out of print gems I can only dream of now.
The book of my choice was filled with spells and illustrated in an almost Edward Gorey-esque style. For twenty five cents I could pay for the book myself, and I did.
The first spell in the book was for love and consisted of finding a personal artifact from the person you wanted to love you. After certain words were spoken the item was buried deeply in a place your love interest would pass often, for instance, near their front door. Within a month, supposedly, they would be yours.
The first entire first chapter consisted of light-hearted, easy-seeming spells. The middle chapter's spells were more complex, and to a girl my age, far more interesting. The Hand of Glory had you digging a grave at midnight and stealing the hand of a thief.
The final chapter had spells that scared me and haunted me--it was my favorite. It was very tempting to use the :To Harm Another" spell after my 5th grade class found my diary in my desk, read it, left their own not always positive comments, and put it back. I did try astral projection and fell asleep. I also tried the spell "See Into One's Soul". This consisted of sitting before a mirror and a candle in a dark room and watching for any changes or signs. It was very frightening to be in a quiet room alone at that age, and my face DID seem to morph and change--and I did NOT like what I saw. I still hope that was not my soul.
The book ended with the spell "To Call the Devil". It said I needed a black hen, black cat, and a black sheep. I was then instructed to kill them and skin them and pour some of their blood into a large receptacle of water. I knew I would not be calling the devil--but wondered what would happen to the people who did do the spell as they waited for his reflection to peer back at them over their left shoulders.
As I think back on this book I wish I had not thrown it into the running water near my home when strange events started occurring in my life. I can see why my father had no problem letting me buy this seemingly innocuous and almost child-like book at such a young age. I had no idea it would get as dark as it did either. I have searched the names of the spells in the book but alas, I can't find it anywhere.
About ten years later I purchased more books from Wiser's Bookstore in NYC. This book was a Golden Dawn manual of sorts, and contained not only spells, but information about rituals, ceremonies, and talismans. I also purchased a book by Aleister Crowley that was very confusing, and some tarot cards. I breezed through both books and got caught up in work and life, and never pursued it much further.
But my interest is still there.
I recently read, "A psychic can read your future--a witch can change it."
This made me wonder if spells can only be done by witches--or by anyone. I've tried several of the spells in several of the books I've had when I was young, to no avail. I do not call myself a witch and ponder what type of things a witch actually CAN change.
I would LOVE some input on this subject! I can look this up and read stories from people on the web but I do not know these people and would be interested in first-hand experiences.
Please tell me. :) And if you know the book I was trying to describe earlier--I'd love to know that too.
You certainty know how to capture someones attention. I have always been fascinated with magic and witchcraft. I believe I have a book of spells here somewhere. Shhhhhh! I would certainly never kill an animal to cast and calling the devil is out of the question. I would use a voodoo doll if I thought it would work, but that's another story. I could go on and on but I will save my other thoughts for another, less public, time.
ReplyDeleteHa! Thanks Debby :)
ReplyDeleteOh now all I want to hear are the stories that you WON'T put here!!
I'm wondering if the voodoo doll was a guy--and if there is another side to Debby that I will find out about someday.
So glad you came by!
XO
Pen
I think many things are *possible*, though how likely they may be depends...Can folks influence events by sheer force of will? Well, people always talk about the power of positive thinking, don't they? It's just a hop, skip, and animal sacrifice away to believe them possible of achieving bad things that way, too.
ReplyDeleteGreat post/Great topic!
ReplyDeleteI know the books you're describing and I'm always confused by them. They contain a mixture of white and grey magik, sometimes even black, which never makes sense to me. A Wiccan author would never include black magik in her books, and a responsible one would probably not include grey magik spells either (in the event that a newbie with strong energy got lucky without proper guidance). In reverse, a black magik practitioner wouldn't have white magic spells in their books either. So who's writing/compiling these books?
The spells evoked in Wicca have their roots based in nature. Because we believe in the power of three, spells are taken seriously and only used for good (cause being punished THREE FOLD ain't fun!). And not even to alter the mind of unrequited love, but rather to evoke what is BEST FOR ALL INVOLVED. There is sometimes a bit of grey magik, but even that is done with great care and only after years of guidance and apprenticeship.
{In the voice of Jerry Seinfeld} Who's writing these books?
B
Ya--looking back the book does seem a bit dangerous--innocuous in the beginning...almost fun--and black by the end.
DeleteI've only tried a few of the white spells and possibly a grey. Everything is tempting to me though--and I must keep the threefold in mind.
Even if you are NOT a witch I think the BEST FOR ALL INVOLVED mantra is a great one to follow.
Thanks for the input!
XO
Pen
See Mina--I always forget the animal sacrafice :P
ReplyDeleteI knew I was missing something. My results are skewed now...
I used to try and move light things with my mind--yeah--you know what happened there.
Thanks fer comin'!
XO
Pen
Magic is real and anyone can perform magic. It is all based on intentions. We actually create magic every time we speak in our heads. Words are magic, thoughts are magic. And they are powerful. Some people know how to manipulate thought and create form. Witches have a hand up in this because that is what we do. We create form from thought. And we back it up with intention. What you need to remember though, and this is what gets most people in trouble, is that whatever you send out, you get back, because magic creates power. You are sending power and you are attracting power. Makes it real easy to not perform dark magic.....
ReplyDelete'Manipulate thought and create form'...
DeleteI have to think about that some more. It has me going in 2 different directions. The first being that we are doing magic at almost every moment of our lives--and how, unfortunately, we create our own self-fulfilling prophesies with the negative loops we get going in our own minds. Nobody can talk bad about us like we can talk about ourselves. This is probably going to make me more self aware of the negative thoughts I blast myself with. The second is actually creating form. Manifesting something out of thin air--something creatives do daily--IS magic, but I took it further in my head. I am thinking of putting such forceful thought into something that something is instantly created--that POOF thing--and it instantly exists. As for dark or black magic--now I think we do this to OURSELVES without knowing it. And now I am aware.
Thanks for the comment Malina--got me thinking.
XO
Pen
Penelope, I too was fascinated by the occult at an early age--not quite as young as you (my teens). I bought books such as these, or took them out of the library to peruse. I did do astral projecting--a very strange and almost scary thing. Plus I think a few times a neighbor man did the same and was in bed with me (yish!)one night.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of dangerous people in the world who can harm you, have the ability and do not give a crud about their own souls when they do this--at one point my husband and I were on the hit list of just such a person he worked with. She wanted my help in writing about her childhood (I refused because it was just too disturbing), and she cursed us and I had to do a LOT of work on counter curses. This lasted for years and I'm not quite sure we're out of the woods as yet.
Anyway, using black spells is not a good idea and I soon realized that hurting others is a scary business (I did it during a silly game called "purple coffin" to someone I really disliked when I was a teenager, and didn't even think it would work, but it did). Negative witchcraft is dangerous and I do not advise anyone to mess with it.
But, this was an excellent post, Penelope! It brought back lots of memories for me--good and bad, but all the same, took me back in time. Thank you! Look forward to more like this (^;
That is scary stuff Lorelei.
DeleteCurses are creepy and insidious--something we may not even know happens to us. I read a book by the Vatican exocist Gabriele Amorth called An Exorcist Tells His Story--fascinating on its own--and talks about curses. Father Amorth says we can be cursed even through generations and if we don't do something about it can suffer terrible consequences.
Please tell what the Purple Coffin game is. We had games when we were kids too--levitation, the Ouija Board, and several others. Hope you get this--and hope that curse is GONE.
XO
Pen
I'm not familiar with it, but it has the makings of a great story. What if it wasn't a print book, written to be resold. What if it was an ancient artifact written by one of the high witches of Salem ~ one of a kind! And what if you hadn't tossed it in the water, but had mastered it and then grown up....
ReplyDeletePaul R. Hewlett
Yer killing me Paul!
DeleteI know--I truly wish I had kept that book--but when you are young and weird and bad things are happening all around you, you grasp for straws and make funny deals with God.
I could have been a High Priestess by now--if that is a real thing (I just stole that from the Crowley tarot deck).
Thanks for coming by--and I agree--here come's a story...
XO
Pen
Hi, Pen!
ReplyDeleteI did not become interested in witchcraft until my first year at college. I took a sociology course taught by a fascinating woman who was a practicing witch. When it came time to research a society, she suggested I research Wicca, and invited me to attend coven gatherings. She was really cool, and I felt very special (being chosen always feels nice, doesn't it?). Nothing weird or bad happened, and the women were full of kindness and white light. However, as part of a presentation to my sociology class, I performed a spell. I picked one that would make us feel closer as a group. Shortly thereafter, even people who had been standoffish were friendly. We did group activities outside of class, and even a couple of years later, we'd still stop and chat on campus if we ran into each other. None of those things happened before the spell. I believe it was magik. I believe it not just because of the change in tone of our group relations, but because the teacher's coven invited me to be their Maiden because of some innate properties of my ... soul? me? I don't know, and I declined the offer. If magik can work, and if I can do it, I choose not to because I also know that there are metaphysical or demonic forces that are attracted to light. Magik - of the loving sort - would draw attention I don't want. Of course, there's always the possibility that the spell only worked because of the power of suggestion. Or maybe the class would have become tight-knit at that point, spell or not. All I know is it gave me a sense of power that I did not feel equal to wielding, and I let it go.
Sad coda: the awesome teacher had a mental breakdown a semester later. I hear she was institutionalized, but I don't know for sure. She never returned.
Did she attract the wrong kind of attention through her magik?
-aniko
Verrrry intersting story Aniko.
DeleteIt is just that kind of thing that keeps me from delving too deeply into anything--and being an eternally interested voyeur. I claim atheism and yet some part of my Christian upbringing holds a cross over my head that I cannot get from under 100%.
We have to talk. I have to know what happened in the get-together.
I hope your teacher came around and it had nothing to do with ANYTHING--or it was just a rumor.
Glad you came by--
XO
Pen
Once upon a time, I was a practicing Enochian Magick Apprentice; those experiences drove a lot of my Among the Dead trilogy, so you could call me a believer. I think Malina gets close to the heart of the matter - magick is meant to be a means of imposing your will upon the world, and it can happen in a number of different ways. Rituals and such work because our subconscious feeds on symbols, and so much of magick is predicated upon the activities in our subconscious. I think Carl Jung came very close to understanding the true nature of magick as an expression of the collective subconscious. I've actually noticed a great deal of parallels between magick practice and certain modes of modern psychotherapy, and both had similar effects on my mind. That led me to suspect that much of it is just programming the mind, and what we think of as "dark magick" is just someone tapping into their base urges.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, I believe anyone can practice magick and does on a daily basis, whether they realize it or not. One of the first lessons that my magick teacher taught me was that thought does matter, and that our thoughts often manifest in our actions and the world itself in ways that we don't expect, so it's important to deal with some of the demons inside before trying to exert yourself outward.
Ah! Intersting to know this about you Jonathan.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Jung--his archetypes and dream interpretations do touch on magic and magical thinking. Some may not agree but I'm with you on the collective unconscious too--it would be hard to interpret the sun as a negative symbol anywhere.
Some cultures believe you can create a Tulpa, a being manifested from sheer discipline. Something physical created from nothing. Some say this is very dangerous. Fascinating stuff.
Glad you stopped by!
XO
Pen
After spending many years practicing in the occult, I came to realize something. All magick is based in quantum physics. It really amounts to attracting that which already exists elsewhere into our conscious view of this reality. However, the idea of good and evil still exists, because we are not the only consciousness in the universe, we are part of a greater.
ReplyDeleteYour intent, as one mentioned here, is the very thing that will align you with either side of the good and evil. Even so, one can find themselves being drawn by even stronger intents on either side. It's a treacherous path to go down. I consciously got off that crazy train over ten years ago. The more magick you use, the more attention you get -- from both sides, and you have now put yourself in the middle with very few exits available.
I always wish I knew who the anonymous repliers were. I agree about intent and being pulled to either side, but on some level I am not sure if the pull if our own psyches responded from some inner mechanism, or there are truly forces--spirits or demons or angels, helping or hurting us.
DeleteAnd yet as I have said before--I am interested--but something keeps me at somewhat of a distance.
Thanks for commenting--enjoyed your response--hope you come back.
XO
Pen
Yikes! There's a lot of spooky stuff out there, isn't there, my friends? I've read your comments, too, and it makes me want to go back and "play" with the dark characters in my latest - for fear I've not researched enough. I'm definitely sure that I only want to see this kind of stuff in the fiction I read.
ReplyDeleteI hope all of you have a great week...
-Jimmy
Hi Jimmy!
DeleteI know what you mean--there is so much out there to know and YES--some of it sure is spooky.
My problem is that I'm NOT sure I only want to see it in fiction--nothing bad or scary--but something possibly in the white magik catagory.
I'm sure that would just open too many doors...I have enough weird stuff going on as it is.
Always glad when you stop by,
XO
Pen