The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

Concept: using a Kapferer prism as both a practical "which elements do I need to have" base for making an egregore, and a graphical ritual tool for it.

 

Marketing is only a technicality away from being evil-minded sorcery anyway. And I’m not sure what that technicality is. Probably lack of powerful intent on the ‘caster’s’ side. Maybe it straight up is evil-minded craft.

 

Can you make curses with the intention of making specific things happen? Because I'm thinking one I'd really like to inflict on some people would be "may your mother read your Tumblr". Threefold law and similar principles would be a bitch with that though.

 

Yes. That is the essence of a lot of satire based curses. Thankfully with those threefold law doesn't apply because threefold law doesn't exist in Gaelpol. Or anything like it. I'd assume that other systems may be able to make specific things occur, but I wouldn't know as what I know is what I do.

 

More experienced and full-time wixes than I, is there anyone with knowledge of nordic-style runes that could give me some advice?

I've always been drawn to runes, and as of late I've been back to scratching/carving them as charms on my belongings. I've been combining them like monographs - one over the other, layered and smooshed together so they look almost like different symbols unless you know what you're looking at - but I've seen more intricate mandela-like charms online, and I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how best to build them?

 

Try asking Morven. She's specifically a Heathen and she definitely knows more about the things than I do. Alternatively another Heathen. I would be careful about heading online and looking up Heathens to ask, but if you do need other names who might be able to help or direct you to help I can provide those.

But away from that...If runes are anything like ogham then there's a sort of freeform nature to how you use them due to lack of information. Given how little we know about Norse mythology and religion that is likely the case, but again I don't really know so ask someone like Morven in particular. If it is the case then you're basically given the freedom to make whatever bullshit you'd like to make and whatever the bitching of others you get to do that.

But for mandala-like constructions...I've got three methods for that sort of thing I know about but they use other scripts. The first is the sigil making method used by chaos magicians like Grant Morrison. Basically write out a sentence stating what you would like to happen and then remove all the vowels from it, as well as duplicate letters I believe? Then take the remaining letters and combine them into a unique sigil that looks cool and powerful. Then there is my method of pretty ogham and popculture magic "mandalas", I suppose we can call them. Instead of using just one symbol with ogham I will write out a sentence or a phrase. Then I make it into a pretty design by relying on the fact that ogham is written with a line that you draw slashes and dashes through and on. So like maybe I'll draw a circle and then write the sentence on that line. And then I'll spruce things up with meaningful addition of other symbols like triskeles in sets of three in pretty patterns around my circle. With my popculture pagan shit though I just take the meaningful symbols and repeat them in a gradually growing geometric pattern that I find appealing to look at. Again it uses very particular numbers such as three and four for how many of the things I have around. There is also a third method which, like the sigil-one, is more similar to what you're describing. It's the method used by Esoteric Buddhist schools. Basically they have divine scripts whose letters are actually made up of like...sub-letters? So that one letter actually is like a whole word or even a whole sentence. They basically take the littler bits and combine them into meaningful larger bits to create a meaningful "letter" that says a lot more than just a letter. Alternatively they go the "just repeat this one little thing over and over" route, which has its own sort of visual appeal. I am not sure about the methodology involved, but like the Morrison thing the idea is to spell out more than just a single letter but have it be just a single letter visually. You might also take cues from Arabic calligraphy perhaps? Find a meaningful phrase or word and then draw a picture with runes that write out said meaningful phrase. Like making a lion out of the Shahada.

 

wait, Grant Morrison like the comic book writer?

(also as far as amuletic inscriptions go, i've always been a fan of vanishing amulets)

(Edit: I removed the attached image because I forgot how extremely copyrighted it is, but google “vanishing amulet” or “tantalus amulet” should turn it up)

 

Yes as in the comic book writer. He's practiced chaos magic most of his life and at least some of the stuff seen in The Invisibles is based on his practice and beliefs. He's a deeply magical man and he's apparently powerful given annecdotes.

 

I don't usually do this kinda stuff, so I don't really know what I'm asking for, but I was wondering if there were any kinds of spells or anything I can use to help my garden grow better. Depression based apathy kinda drove me to fuck it up last year, and now that spring is here I want to do better. Anything simple for someone who used to be into this stuff like eight years ago but doesn't really know what they're doing?

 

@Sethrial MacCoill I'm a level zero witch, but I tried charging a piece of moss agate and put it in with my indoor tomato plant and it did much better than I thought it was going to do, so maybe try something like that?

The moss agate is in with my nearly-dead basil now and I'm hoping it will do some good there as well

 

"plant/bury a rock" was my first thought too, but then rocks are my solution to everything :p

 

Jade is supposed to be good for plants as well, although I haven't done too much with stones personally.

I always go toward the practical side of witchcraft first, so my go to for plant magic is eggshells. On a ritual level they're great for protection, purification, and nurturing, and they also give your plants nutrients and aerate the soil.

I rinse mine out and grind them up in a mortar and pestle to save, but if that's too much like work or you don't have a mortar and pestle you can just rinse them and crush them by hand or use them mostly whole and they'll be fine. Use them as the focal point of a spell to keep your plants strong when you do your planting and put the egg shells in the bottoms of your pots/beds.

 

There's lot's of options for green magic, since it's something that's important to so many people. Do you have a tradition you like to work in or tools you favor?

 

question for y'all.
any of you ever bought crystals/rocks from cute.wish.com?
I was recommended the site for makeup, from someone I trust not to be fucking with me, but then I noticed they sell a LOT of shit and it's not all makeup. and some of it's crystals, and like....the makeup, I can kind of accept, albeit very carefully. but they've got some other stuff where they're like "these four labradorite wands for $6, normally a $50 purchase!!" and I'm like....really? is this a scam. it has to be a scam.
and so I'm wondering if anyone's ever bought crystals off there, and if yes, what happened.

 

I think the main point of Wish is that they sell cheap Chinese stuff, and since they're so cheap you don't really complain when they turn out to be low-quality. Makeup is probably fine-ish (though honestly, I'm not sure I'd 100% trust it), but I'd definitely think crystals that cheap might be a bit suspicious.

 

(Though their actual business model seems to be mostly based on selling customer data, which is why they require Facebook or Google accounts, so also probably be careful about that. Then again, everyone does that now.)

 

I haven't, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say what you get is gonna be pretty glass.

 

I didn't use my Facebook OR Google account to sign up, so, shrug.
I'm going to guess it's not glass, because it's actually not that hard to tell glass apart from an actual crystal in my experience (especially given some of the crystal types being sold) and people don't actually seem that bothered with the sellers, but I'm going to assume that it's not as good as they're saying it is--i.e. they're probably mostly really crappy specimens with hardly any actual crystal in them.

 

so the moon water I made during January, on the first of the month
today I drank it.
for magical purposes!
...and also because I was out of water bottles of normal water and my reusable water bottle is in need of a thorough cleaning before I use it again, but it had magical intent behind it too.

 

I have a friend who has come up with what he considers a brilliant plan.

He’s fixing up an unused spot in his apartment complex to use as a meditation spot. However, he wants to be the only one to use it. His solution: curse the garden around the meditation spot so that everyone who walks through it gets cursed.

Yup.