Tag Archives: Magick

Hammer of the Witches – honouring the past

I cannot remember the first time I became enchanted with the idea of the “other” being real. I often tell the story of the fairies at the play park when I talk about my connection with the Fae but when I take time to examine it (as I have done very recently), there is a sense that my relationship began as a combination of factors rather than one pivotal moment. I grew up in a home filled with fantasy and science fiction in a time when fantasy and fiction weren’t really mainstream reading material. The Sci Fi section in both WH Smiths and the local library rarely extended beyond one or two shelves on a bookcase, but my dad and I could spend hours together choosing our books, it was our special time, sacred. I blame my dear old dad for my love of books and my reading tastes because of it; in my teens when my friends were completely hooked on Sweet Valley High, I was memorising the “Litany Against Fear”.*

I suspect I read hundreds of books growing up, although I never counted. There was one summer break where a friend’s mother handed me several carrier bags with about 40 books contained inside, mostly historical romances. I took to my bed to read, only rising to eat, relieve myself, and occasionally shower. I was a teenager and a filthy mutt, please don’t judge. There I stayed for the entire 6 weeks, the unread stack on one side of the bed slowly shrinking and read side growing. My parents despaired, but at least I wasn’t out getting into trouble somewhere, so they mostly suffered my withdrawal from the world.

Despite my voracious appetite some books stuck rather than fading into the morass, one book from my childhood stood out for me over and above all others, so clearly that even decades later as I was writing Urban Faery Magick it became a bit of an obsession. I purchased a copy and it sat on my desk throughout the entire process. It was often the book I reached for if I wanted to relax, to tune out and escape the world. Guess what? its a fairy story and a really jolly good one too. It’s the story of two Cornish children and their family and what happens when they find and take a Changeling into their home. Its filled with little snippets of lore wrapped up in a children’s tale, its funny, its heart warming and its so sad that it’s haunting. I am convinced that had I not read that book as an impressionable young child I would not be interested in the subjects I study and write about today. A work of fiction is responsible for and has informed my practise, gasp horror! Never again will I roll my eyes at the “Mists of Avalon” brigade.

BTW – If you’re interested the book is called “A Year and a Day” by William Mayne, it’s a little dated, but an enchanting read so if you happen upon a copy somewhere grab it, it won’t take you more than a hour, two tops.

Why am I writing about this today? Well today I was accused of being evil because I have read (and recommended that someone else read) the Malleus Maleficarum. In fairness it is a document written by a religious zealot who was so vile that he was in essence single handedly responsible for the majority of deaths during what we now call the “Burning Times”. This was a time in history when somewhere between 60 and 90 thousand women, and more than a few men across Europe and the Americas were accused of witchcraft and/or heresy and then put to death. In some countries this was by burning, but it was just as common to be strangled or hung or both! Some excitable folks have suggested that it was 100’s of thousands or even millions but the academic evidence does not support this, the numbers however are horrific enough without the exaggeration so I don’t want to detract from what happened. That is not the purpose of this post.

Despite its awful history, the Malleus Maleficarum and subsequent documents such as James I’s Daemonologie give us a unique insight into the world during that period and like it or not, in books like these we can see little snippets of magical practises used even today. Sorry folks, I know it’s uncomfortable, but forget Crowley, there’s demons and witch hunters in your Wicca! and you know what, that’s absolutely OK, because if we stop examining our history, if we stop taking what works from it and refining it, then we are bound to make the same mistakes in our future – we become stagnant.

If we declare a book or a set of teachings wholly fictional or worse still wholly evil then that is the path we are destined to tread, one of wilful ignorance doomed to repeat history time and time again. Instead if we read, and learn about history from all angles in an objective manner we can see how to move forward. From there we can innovate, improve and help others do the same. No book is evil, regardless of how distasteful it is. A book does not have a morality in and of itself, after all they just contain words, the morality comes from those who read it and how they act upon the words inside. Books aren’t evil, people are, and sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending that they never existed it foolish at best, and at worst downright disrespectful to those who suffered as a result. You want to be a “witch”, then learn what it meant to be accused of being a witch, learn what you were supposed to be able to do (you might be surprised) and honour the poor souls who passed by ensuring you are informed enough to never let it happen again!

* “I must not fear, fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration, I will face my fear, I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it has gone past, I will turn my inner eye to see its path, where the fear has gone there will be nothing, only I shall remain” – The Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert Dune. That is some deep shizzle right there, but I might talk about that on another day.

My Big Fat Citrine Experiment

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If anybody remembers back to the heady days of livejournal you may remember my “big fat citrine experiment” from circa 2005. Guess what it’s come to an end, finally, maybe, or maybe not.

For those who are none the wiser let me set the scene.

It was back in the day when both myself and the husbeast were contracting and consulting a lot and from time to time there would be short lull’s in the work available. We usually embraced this time with joy choosing to do mad things like buying a VW camper van and taking our then ‘not even out of nappies’ daughter touring France for a month. But this particular instance had me on edge, I was nervous. I couldn’t say why, I just wasn’t happy and as one month stretched to two I started fretting about money. I fret a lot about money, I fret when we have it, I fret even more when we don’t.

One evening I was asked if I would like to go to the local moot. Honestly when I heard the subject matter, I wasn’t very keen. Crystals and Feng Shui. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with crystals because I fundamentally disagree with the way the majority of them are mined. And I don’t believe suppliers when they say that what they are selling is ethically ‘sourced’ – the hint is in the word sourced, they rarely use the word ‘mined’; there is a difference and this rings alarm bells for me. I am also extremely sceptical about the actual power of crystals. Like really sceptical.

I get the whole sympathetic magick thing, Ive been using it successfully for years after all; I also cannot deny that you can pick up certain rocks and they have an energy to them. For example I went to a wonderful talk by the amazing Orion Foxwood back in February and he handed around a whole collection of stones he called scrubber stones, basically stones that have the power to cleanse and heal energetically. I am now the proud owner of a largish piece of Sulphur included Quartz which I sit with after particularly horrible days at work. But really, I look at those crystal infused water bottles and folks shoving crystals on their chakras; and if they subscribe to anything ‘Goop’ related, where the sun doesn’t shine; and well as a general rule I am just not buying it.

Anyway back to 2005, along I trotted, with just enough money in my pocket to buy two drinks and get a bus home. I have never worked out what came over me as I listened to the woman giving her talk. When she started discussing citrine, my ears pricked and my heckles bristled. She explained the difference between natural citrine and heat treated (aka Amethyst), how she used it and where in the house was optimal for financial success. She talked about several customers who had followed her instructions to the letter and within days had come into substantial sums of money. That was it, I was sold, I would call it an empirical experiment. Although I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it empirical, but there you go. It sounded plausible.

I bought a palm sized rough citrine cluster and a small tumble stone. I duly followed the instructions which was to place the tumble stone in my purse to ensure it was always full and the cluster was placed in the furthest left hand corner of the house away from the front door. I then blogged at some length and rather satirically about it. But I kid you not within days both the husbeast and myself had landed work with quite eye wateringly good daily rates. It wasn’t the citrine was it? Gah! perhaps it was, and now because I fret about money I was afraid to take the damn things away. And so for the last 15 years I’ve had a rough citrine cluster on my kitchen windowsill and a small piece of citrine in my purse. Until well, sometime in the last 5 days. The purse stone is gone!

I suspect I lost it at the weekend. I ended up with a lot of change in my purse and coins are starting to spill out from those weird little slits at the bottom of the coin pouch. It probably dropped out. And I can’t bear it so I’ve had to order a new one. And there in lies the power of magick, I have invested so much belief into that little bit of rock it now has masses of power, oodles and doodles of it. And I wants it my precious and I will do whatever it takes to get it.

I also hate the idea that I’ve potentially left the house ‘without’ so today I created an extra bit of something for the household. A prosperity/success jar. It is a super easy spell and can often be put together with things you can find in the house. I’ve made a little Youtube video (please be patient I’ve never done a full tutorial before) to get you started. It’s a fab spell and you can add to it over time; a piece of star anise here, a coin there, knotted ribbons and fake gems whatever takes your fancy. Let me know how you get on if you give it a try!

Seeing through different eyes.

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So I did promise you a post about my recent eye surgery and this morning seems like a good time to write it; I woke early, before it was even daylight and sat on my doorstep drinking a coffee, the moon very low and very golden watching over me. I can see her still even though dawn is now upon me, over my shoulder through my office window.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday, balmy, the blossom is out on my Damson tree in the garden its delicate white petals literally just sprang forth over night and the birds have all gone twitter-pated as my dad used to call it. Spring has definitely sprung. But the spirits of winter cling albeit deperately on for a few more weeks and beautiful clear days are followed by bitterly cold nights and last night was one of those nights, the grass is covered in a freezing glistening coating of very heavy dew, almost frost.

On a morning such as this I would normally have stepped out from my cozy kitchen and instantly steamed up; it would have taken much polishing of glasses to afford me a clear view of the moon above me, removing them would have been pointless for I would not have even been able to make out the step at my feet let alone a solitary satellite orbiting above. But this morning there I sat shivering just a little in my dressing gown and pyjamas staring in wonder. Even now nearly two months after my surgery little things such as this, something many take for granted, delight me.

It not all a bed of roses though, one eye didn’t take the surgery as well as the other and as a result I have some ghosting/double vision in that eye, but combined my binocular vision is 20:20 so my jury is still out as to whether I will take the surgeon up on the offer to have a 2nd surgery to try and correct it. Life after all is not perfect, its all about tolerances. Look at any machine or gadget in your home, it functions, serves it purpose, as a complete unit you could say it is an item of perfection, yet its component parts may be far from perfect, all manfactured to a specification plus or minus a certain degree of tolerance. The natural world operates in the same manner, the seasons, the weather, when the flowers bloom and when the animals breed happen to a timetable but that timetable again has more than a little bit of flexibility in it and it happens in its own sweet time and its own sweet way, but it does happen, it works, a perfect item.

I’ve pondered long and hard as to why so many people purporting to lead magickal or spiritual lives seem so dissatisfied with thier lives, their constant striving for perfection (however they define it) leads to naught. And I think the problem comes down to understanding the tolerances involved, the balance that is required to take these imperfect things we are given and make them a working whole. We are all given a bunch of pegs and a board full of holes, and if peg A is just a little too large to fit in hole A, we shouldn’t sit down and moan that we have no sandpaper to make it fit, first we should try and see if peg A fits in holes B, C, D or E first, we may find that all the pegs fit in a hole somewhere even if it isn’t in the order we imagined and no sandpaper is required.

Somebody asked me about spellwork and Hekate the other day, and seemed quite disgusted when I suggested that Hekate was not generally the Goddess to approach for everyday spells. “Why is she known as the Witches Goddess then?” I was asked. And it is an interesting question. And I think it comes down to perception of what a witch is and what a witch does. And in my opinion a witch does what works! Let me explain; I was for over a decade an Engineer and a large part of that time I worked in Quality Assurance, I could look at a circuit board under a microscope and tell within a thousanth of an inch if the tracks printed on it were too close together, too thin, too thick, too raised or any number of other criteria given by the designers. If you place tracks too close together wierd stuff happens, odd harmonics can be created by the signals running down these little strips of metal affecting the operation of the device, shorts can happen, tracks that heat up can buckle causing catastrophic failure, those boards are rejected, or sometimes sent back for rework; the witch does the same, s/he takes what they are given they inspect it and accept or reject it, and unlike the clear cut function of a circuit board which is either fit for purpose or it isn’t, a witch can take what they are given and find a purpose for it. They have to look at things with different eyes, Witches are in short the Quality Assurance of the natural world.

And Hekate is the Project Manager, you can tell her you need more pegs, (or boards to inspect – pick your metaphor), but she rules the work flow. She knows what needs doing and when, she will present you with something, but it might not be the something you were expecting, or even specifically asking for, but it will be a something you can use. After all what is it Hesiod said?

By Whomever she chooses, she comes and stands in full presence and helps him.

The True meaning of Human Sacrifice

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If you haven’t already read my post on Devotion, you might like to read it before continuing on DEVOTION.

I thought I might expand a little bit on the subject today as recently I’ve seen a lot of “want it quick, want it easy, want it now” attitude happening. I’d been advised that putting anything on my blog from my book before it was published was probably a little unwise, but I felt it necessary to make an exception in this case, here is a little of what I write about sacrifice in the ancient world.

in general it appears that even in ancient society there was worth in expensive or difficult to obtain items, a value that perhaps has been forgotten, sacrifice as a ritual device was not and should not necessarily be all about blood offerings and immolation, but about providing the Gods with items worthy of their notice and devotion over and above everyday religious activity. – From the forthcoming book Liber Hekate by Tara Sanchez

Devotion and sacrifice to what ever deity you venerate is not just about lighting candles, burning incense, doing ritual, reading holy books, even going to church or other sacred sanctuary; it is about sacrifice, real human sacrifice; and in our modern world where everything IS bigger, better, faster, more, what is more precious than our time and our effort.

My daily devotion currently consists of sitting at this computer, sometimes upwards of twelve hours a day, I write, I write about Hekate, agonising over the content and the details, hoping that what I provide is worthy of notice. And its not the first time my devotional work has been, to the outsider, apparently entirely mundane and time consuming, I’ve spent whole weekends up to my elbows in clay creating images, hours with superglue and hundreds of glass beads, creating, when I would rather have been out with my friends or family instead. And I’ve smashed those lovingly, hard worked for items, into a million smithereens, burnt them on open fires, gifted them to others, thrown things in running water, launched them into the sea. I think you get the idea, I made a sacrifce, just as I sacrificed my time, I sacrificed the item itself.

Oh I could have bought many of the items I have created from the shops or other artisans. Got them quick, got them easy; but that isn’t the point. I had to put the effort and energy and intent into it, if I hadn’t, then the sacrifice would have meant nothing to me, or her for that matter!

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone”