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

I'd really be interested in finding something that speaks to me, even though right now I'm still in the 'watches everything with interest' stage. I grew up in a barely christian family, and while i haven't been christian for about six years for personal reasons i still believe there's a thing. hanging out. supplying energy and generally being chill. I fondly refer to it as The Great Big Cloud (of Energy) In The Sky.

Because i can't think of anything else and i don't feel getting names or descriptors 100 percent tight is really important as long as you know what it is in your head.

A few years ago I sort of worshipped the Harvest Goddess, which is a bit silly because she's a really derpy goddess from a video game series, but when she isn't being super impotent or whatever she's just a nice lady. who makes crops grow. and she has sprites that do things related to fire and water and earth and relationships/wishes and such. I don't mean to belittle anything by bringing up a video game of all things, it's just that I really like the idea of friendly, chill gods? it's soothing. Not that I think that all gods are fluffy-fluff lovey beings, that would be unrealistic. But if i'm going to think about any of them on a regular basis I'm going to focus more on the friendly, loving ones, is what i am attempting to say.

I'm terrible at wording any of this though (especially after ten at night, why do i even allow myself to post things later, eugh).

I just find it interesting, I'm on the ninth page of this thread currently..I've been thinking of looking into spiritual things for a while now, because I love learning, but there's a lot out there and so many different opinions and I haven't hunkered down in a search engine and even looked up the basics to anything yet.

 

@bornofthesea670 Pop culture paganism is actually totally a thing (I'm a pop culture witch myself which is SLIGHTLY a different thing). There's nothing silly about worshipping a video game goddess if that's what works for you!

 

I was the biggest dork, since I was used to saying "oh my god" and I was being all rebellious and "screw your christian god" at the time,

Spoiler: i guess I don't feel too bad saying this but spoiler anyway

My mother has a long history of really bad luck with carrying babies to term? and she lost three babies in a row in about five years and i prayed for every one to live and it SUCKED since I was really actually very religious at the time in my own way, so when she conceived the fourth time i was like 'okay god, i know we probably won't keep this one but please please please protect mom's heart because this is so painful for her'
and that was the one pregnancy that actually resulted in a healthy younger sibling.
just. there's religious people in my life, including my mom, who would say 'everything happens for a reason' and that that situation was a whole 'he's making you stronger or testing your faith' or whatever but it just felt like a big 'fuck you' so i was like, 'WELL SCREW YOU TOO, I'M DONE WITH YOUR SICK GAMES, GOD'

although i'm more than okay with jesus. Jesus is a cool dude.

so I would stop myself and say 'oh my god...dess. that's totally what i meant to say, shut up'
XD haha high school is fun to look back on sometimes.

and thank you for the reassurance, haha, I just go with what feels right. :)
think i'll stick around this thread and just absorb stuff if that's ok. this is such a friendly thread. this website in general is ridiculous, :D love it.

 

I feel you very strongly on "fuck god, but jesus was a cool dude." That's basically the core of my feeling on it. It's actually somewhat interesting because I philosophically align greatly with some of my Jewish friends, just... Nope Nope At Religion.

Unrelated: I was reminded this evening, appros of nothing, of a spirit that used to visit one of my highschool online friends that was basically his antithesis. I wonder how she's doing.

 

soooooo I have been interested in witchcraft for a while as a thing that is unrelated to religion (I am eh on religion stuff)
and yesterday evening the weirdest thing happened
see the thing is I used to have a... spirit friend? Maybe? There was a stall at a ren faire that let you make your own metal amulettes and poor it in a way that you'd be the first person to touch the thing, making it imprint on you.
So after a bit of waffling I decided on getting a wolf's paw print, mostly because my mother said it 'seemed to fit me'.
And when I touched it I kind of felt like a presence and fur touching my hand. A soft and curious hello. For a while the wolf spirit seemed like a normal wolf and would visit occassionally so I took to wearing the pendant at all times.
At some point the visits grew sparser, maybe because he thought I'd grown up and didn't need him so much anymore? Then the leather band broke and I took to carrying the amulette in my wallet instead.
Well yesterday night, right after I'd made the decission to research witch stuff for real I suddenly felt a really strong draw to pick up the pendant I hadn't touched in about two years. So I went and got it out of my wallet and uh. He's back. And he has grown. He is way bigger than a normal wolf now. But it's definitly the same wolf the feeling is very familiar?
He also told me to call him Fenrir and only after me panickedly googling ragnarök for a while he laughed at me and let me know he is not THE Fenris Wolf, but he IS of his blood.
He hasn't left me since and I'm not sure if he is benevolent or malevolent? He feels reassuring and mildly threatening at the same time.
He REALLY wants me to get a pot of heather to care for but I am so bad at caring for plants @_@

 

I would strongly suggest getting the heather and trying really hard to take care of it. It'll probably be good for you, and the fact that he wants you to nurture something and make it grow suggests good things about your wolf.

 

-casually likes every post in the thread-

@The Frood Abides careful what you wish for. I have a monster of a post incoming eventually. Been working on it since 2ish. Now 8:30. Might not fit all in one post. (Also realized I'm missing chunks, so the conclusion will probably be unsatisfying. It already would be, since it's mostly "we stop paying attention to thing until it mostly goes away and collectively decide not to bring it up without reason." When I inevitably adapt it for the toes not autobiographical YA novel I promise I'll come up with something appropriately exciting :P

 

Ok. Fuck this is a hell of a ride. Like, sometimes I don't even believe it happened and it was an episode of some serious group psychosis. I will not blame any of you for not believing me, but I hope at the very least it's entertaining. Please also forgive any sidetracking. You guys know I have a pretty extensive history that sometimes needs to show up as context and also it is stupid o'clock and I can't sleep. Which also explains any missing/mangled words or weird phrasing.

Spoiler: Did this happen or are we crazy?

So back when I had social spoons we used to meet up at my moirail's house because it was at the middle point between all our houses more-or-less, and it was a nice house with parents who didn't feel the need to check in on us every six minutes. I think it was our sophomore year and we all had plans to hang out at her place for most of the day. Bro (not my brother but one of my oldest friends, name redacted) had to leave early so right around noon we all came outside with him to see him off. There were three of us still hanging out; my moirail and I, my ex-moirail (and current moirail's flush at the time) and a friend I'll call Coy. I'll also go ahead and say we were all Crafty to some degree before we met (even Bro and ex-moirail, who I met in at ~7 or 8), which was a large part of what drew us together, but I was the only one who knew wixen outside of our friend group. There might have been some twee-ness at some point (definitely when the first three of us were kids), but by the time this happened we'd done our "is this a Thing or are we LARPing The Craft 24/7" introspection on our own and decided we were serious. We weren't a coven; we functioned a lot like this thread, more talking about our experiences and sharing lore and advice. There was very little Doing Magic Together or anything like that.

I think either Coy or I felt it first. I'd been feeling off since I'd showed up but I figured it was the strain of being social and having to wake up before noon on a weekend (after not sleeping much during the week; insomnia was BAD and largely untreated at the time) to do so. Just remembered, moirail sent me her diary and a few after-incident chats because I was trying to work out a timeline about a year ago when we were talking about weird shit that happened to us. Looks like it was Coy that spoke up first. Also a correction: ex-<> had left much earlier in the day and wasn't present for this first incident. As we were going back inside there was a... I don't know. A pulse, maybe, or something like the tugging of a leash. Sam's diary says Coy referred to it as a "flux of energy". Coy asked if anyone else felt it, I said I did, we paused and it came again, moirail confirmed she felt it as well. Since it was New and Anomalous, we were both unsettled and enthusiastic. We could only get a vague direction initially, but every time it happened it got a little clearer. Since it was pretty strong (once I noticed it, it tended to hit me like a wave every time. <> noticed it the least, and Coy is very stoic but I think it hit her pretty fierce, too) we decided to follow it and see if it led somewhere nearby, just out of curiosity. Hometown is good for walking in, pretty hard to get lost, and we used to walk around <>'s neighborhood pretty often because her room simply wasn't made for five teens with large bubbles. So we took off following the strange feeling, which yes I realize is generally a bad idea but we were very bored wixen in a very strange town. (At one point a few towns over my dad met a very old Chumash man [who apparently didn't exist]. He asked my dad where he was from and when told nodded and said "Ah, yes. Dead center: nowhere," clapped him on the shoulder, and left. Mom was the only other person who saw the man despite being in a decently crowded area, and dad at least was 0% under the influence of any of his preferred recreational substances. The town does feel like it exists inside of something like a faraday cage for spiritual energy, something many of the wixen I know in the area also feel but can't explain. Oddly, most of them aren't as disturbed by it as I am.)

ANYWAY, we did the "stupid teenagers in the first 10 minutes of a horror movie" thing and followed the Strange Calling Feeling. It turned out to be very close! Just a couple blocks down (small blocks; small town) we found a rectangle of open space between houses, not very big but not very small either. You could probably fit a small house there with room for a very tiny front + back yard, except it was hilly in a "grass barely growing over rock" way that made it very lumpy. Near the street there was a... kind of seam. A little channel on the right side, about half a foot down and maybe two wide tops, that was even rockier and had a bunch of broken up white stones of various sizes in it (some were pretty big, but none that couldn't be picked up by hand. They were also different from the rock underneath. When we went back ex-<> identified them as limestone, but ex-<> is notoriously full of shit and likes to pretend he's an authority on everything). There was a lone tree right next to the rocks, but closer to the far side there was a cluster of five trees with three of them forming a non-equilateral triangle. One of the trees forming the triangle was taller and leafier than the others, but the same kind.

Of course, any three points can make a triangle. But most people don't arbitrarily draw non-equilateral triangles when given five points, and we all drew the same triangle. Conversation between the three of us went along the lines of "Do you feel that?" "In the triangle?" "Oh good, you see it too." This is the part where things went from Weird to Highly Unsettling. <> took a picture on her phone of the trees to show to the guys later, and kept taking pictures of relevant things. We agreed to enter the Ominous Triangle and investigate. When did there was a feeling I can only describe as old. It was the same heavy feeling when I saw the sequoias in Yosemite and realized many of them were 2000 years old or more, did the math, and realized how small the average human lifespan was in comparison, same as when I saw the older exhibits at the Metropolitan and thought about how many lifetimes ago the artists lived, same as that chill I get when I think of geology and astronomy and think of how old the earth is in human terms and yet how young in universal. That feeling of being small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, a zit on an ass the size of god. We all felt it, awed and unnerved.

<> and Coy had a bit of an argument over the other feeling present: Coy felt very safe and at peace while <> felt very unsafe and wanted to run but was unwilling to leave us behind. turned to me for a tiebreaker. My feeling of the place was largely neutral, not as comforted as Coy did, but apparently safe enough to sleep at; I felt very, very tired, which was strange considering I had my usual spike of energy I get when visiting friends not but moments before, to the point I wanted to curl and sleep right there. Also strange because, as I've said, I'm an insomniac and at the time was running on an average of 2hrs a night. Sleep did not come easy, especially not in unfamiliar places, and very definitely not in unfamiliar places you discover when everything suddenly goes Weird. <> was well and thoroughly unsettled, said the place made her strangely sad and scared and that it felt wrong. We agreed to leave to get paper to sketch the layout of the lot, since the triangle was definitely Significant and maybe the other parts were, too.

Sam took another photo, this one of the big tree. Another Very Strange Thing: in it is Coy, kneeling off to the side (I think she was looking at the plant next to her to Look Busy since she and <> were still a little tense from their opposite impressions of the place) and <>'s little brother, only halfway in the frame but definitely there. None of us remember him having been along. There's no reason for him to have been along. He shared some interesting experiences with <> that had turned her toward magic and was a little wobbly on whether or not he believed, but he wasn't Crafty at all and we didn't discuss wix things with him. There is no way we would have voluntarily brought him with us, and if we did we wouldn't have talked about any of what we were experiencing as openly as we did. <> only even noticed when she was sending the section of diary several years later, which included the photo, and asked if I remembered him being there. He doesn't remember being there or involved in any of this. He's not mentioned in the diary entry at all. But he's in the photo.

As we were leaving, we each heard a different voice. Coy heard a "motherly" and "loving" feminine voice, but what it said isn't written down anywhere. <> also heard a voice she assumed was a woman's, but this one scared and pained (in her diary "[...]in agony. Desperate, almost vengeful") and demanding that she come back. Mine was a rough masculine voice, very calm and certain but with a tone of... weariness I suppose. The kind of "exhausted of life" quality that people sometimes get when they've been through hell for so long they aren't sure they'll make it out the other side. It told me to "tread carefully." We shared what we'd heard and went back to <>'s house, Coy and I obtained permission to sleep over and Coy had her piano lesson from <>'s mom. Then we got the paper and left to get back to the trees... except we felt the calling again. At first we assumed it was calling us back, as per the voice <> heard, but when we got there we felt the pulse coming from farther down the street instead. We stopped to take down the layout of the trees and kept walking. It was a little harder than last time to follow the feeling, though it was leading each of us in the same direction, and eventually we realized we had walked in a very large loop when we ended up on the last leg of our usual walking route just as the feeling faded. Though confused, we agreed we hadn't wandered in a big circle because we were lost or turned around, but because we were in fact lead; we had been able to pinpoint a distinct direction from the call at each turn, it just took more deciphering than the first time. FTR, when I say "we agreed" wrt the experiences, I mean there was actual discussion beyond "shrug" "yup". I'm just cutting out the getting of independent confirmation between us. We were all really starting to wonder if shit was Real around the time this happened and I know for me it really cemented my belief (I will admit I sometimes wondered if I felt things because I expected to/convinced myself things were real that weren't, and having people not related to my family saying they're experiencing the same weirdness before I even mentioned it helped convince me I wasn't crazy.) Apparently I suggested whatever was the source had taken us along that route so we would have time to think about and discuss what was going on, or the source was drunk.

We went back to <>'s house, had dinner, talked at length about what had happened and what to do about it. We decided to each perform our prefered methods of divination on the matter and compare notes. Since we were at <>'s house and her tools were right there, she decided to do hers right then. She had two prefered methods: a deck of non-tarot archetype cards she made herself, and a pouch of stones she usually used to measure spiritual/emotional connections between us, going by distances between them and which ones each was closest to, with each stone representing someone. The cards aren't recorded, but it says they "weren't exactly reassuring but we'll have to see what happens." The stones were more interesting. First, before she started she set up three in a triangle over the area. I sassed something along the lines of "ugh, more triangles," she told me a little defensively that it helped define a space and focus her energy. I said of course, the less lines the more stable (drawing from 3D, where the less sides the more stable, with the most being the sphere), which is why circles are traditional. <> agreed and said triangles were easier to set up in a limited space than a proper circle and only required the three objects that can be carried easily (as opposed to either many small objects or something messy like dusts or chalk, especially since she usually used her stones using her bed as the landing surface since it was flat but fluffy so they didn't skid/bounce and end up under or behind things). And then we stopped, I'm fairly certain because we came to the same conclusion, but I was the one that shouted it out and dropped my head into my hands so I could swear a lot: it was entirely possible the triangle was a focus of some sort. A capital-I Intentional redirection of energy. Which is why we all drew the same shape when given five not-obviously-connected points. And then <> threw the stones. As I said, she had one stone for each of us and used it to pretty much see whose energy was closest to whose atm. What she got was a scale copy of the map we drew of the lot: the seam with stones, the tree next to it, and the five trees, three of which formed the triangle.

<> was starting to feel very Not Ok about things, especially since her experience so far was the most actively negative, so Coy called ex-<> and told him what happened while <> and I talked about unrelated things. The subject was dropped for the night, we goofed around until we fell asleep. <> only recorded hers, but we all had unsettling dreams that night. We talked about them a little, but mostly avoided the subject and hung out as usually until Coy and I left.

Apparently Coy and <> heard their respective voices again later that day, but I didn't. The calling started again but very faint, and would strengthen and fade out regularly. We also got the feeling we should bring Bro and ex-<> there. In the chat log from that day (also sent by <>; after several computer upgrades mine are long lost) Coy says they were "invited" which I think was what the voice told her that day. <> didn't record what she heard. Coy's voice was the most talkative and apparently willing to help, but wasn't always clear enough to make out and didn't respond to Coy's attempts at talking to it directly. From what she could gather we had been "invited" and that those who "denied it's real or are ignorant of its existence" couldn't feel it. We concluded that the "invitation" was pretty much to anyone who could pick up on it. Coy could feel it all the way out at her house, I could only feel it outside, and <> could feel it outside and in certain parts of her house. We determined the reason for the differences were wards: Coy kept hers minimal, my dad wards every house he's lived in into a fortress (he started with the "no you stay PUT" ward that goes on the outside of serous demonic summoning circles and turned it inside out to use as a foundation) since the Shadow Incident, and <> has decent but not particularly great home wards. (<> is better at personal protection. When things escalated I ended up getting advice from dad and helping her with her house wards.) (For those wondering why I didn't involve outside wixen: most of them live a few towns over from Hometown and its weird faraday cage thing. For those wondering why dad didn't notice something was up: dad doesn't go outside. We also theorized at one point it was reaching out to younger wixen specifically, either because we might be easier to manipulate or because we'd be less set in our ways and willing to listen to something outside what we know.)

In the chat there's some discussion of the dreams we had, but only in that they were placed that felt familiar to us but we'd never visited. Coy dreamt of a desert, <> of a forest, and apparently I dreamt of being buried.

There's a large gap in my memory between here and the next major part I remember, with a few minor events between that I either vaguely remember or have records of. Major thing to note: the day after was the start of a major depression spiral that didn't stop until everything was over. Going to post the rest in another post before I hit the character count.

 

@Lazarae holy fucking shitdamn, that's way freakier than anything I've discovered. I've got a good spot of energy reverb in the local park that I've been meaning to go back to (it's where a tree hangs far enough over the lake that you can actually sit entirely over the water, and the whole thing is completely screened from the rest of the park by first a circle of Douglas firs and then a couple of smaller leafy trees I'm not familiar enough with to identify) but nothing like that. JFC.

Anyway, not on that subject, but an update to last night: So the more I thought on it the more I'm pretty sure suddenly thinking of Kex (that's the name we used for the spirit) was a HEY, HELLO, REMEMBER ME? nudge. Did a couple late-night tarot readings on the matter - my dragon deck (which I used specifically because of the influence of teenager Nai, it's the only deck I owned during the original period of association) gave me three of wands indicating "a new partnership," while my silhouettes deck gave me Magician with far-card Justice. Justice is pretty indisputably the friend she used to be adhered to in this scenario, so I think she's like, moving on from him and looking for a new place to settle? Which would make sense to me (he's recently engaged) but I'm just kind of like, what do. I don't normally fuss with spirits, they avoid me and I avoid them, except for my ghost cat and apparently her, and that's how I like it, sooooo...

 

@Starcrossedsky I regret to inform you the shit had not yet hit the fan by that point. Wait until I get to the month of nightmares D:.

 

@Lazarae sweet jesus and every saint, I say, swearing with a religion I'm not a part of to indicate the depths of my "oh, fuck"

#same vein as that joke about 'do you know how hard you have to be hit to see someone else's god?" that goes around tumblr now and then

 

Off topic from lazarae's super interesting past: does anyone know if you can cleanse a tarot deck, and if so, how?

 

Pretty much the same as any other object, bearing in mind that it's paper so water-based cleansing methods ate out of the question. I put mine in a box with salt and sage and left it alone for a week. Did that with most of my decks in succession and it seems to have works okay.

#i call it cleansing baby jail

 

@Starcrossedsky thank you!!!
also cleansing baby jail is hilarious

 

I don't do tarot (Yet. Let's face it, it's probably "I don't do tarot yet") but back in the thread one or more of the tarot people mentioned tarot spreads that cleanse the cards. Something to do with putting them in a specific order?

 

Yeah I'm going to research how to properly care for heather and hope Fenrir allows me to wait on the purchase for a while because I want to make sure I don't immediately murder a plant that's not "mine" so to speak but his.

 

Oh gosh. Can I be really relieved this thread exists? Because I really am. I'm mainly into divining, honestly. I only had the cash for a pendulum, so that's what I work with. Besides, yes/no questions are much easier for me to think over then trying to figure out tarot cards (though I've been trying to learn) and I actually managed to get some kind of positive result with a freaking phone on a charger cable (We were going to a boardwalk and I was bored and practicing so I asked if we'd get pizza and if I'd win a big prize, got yes for both, surprise. pizza, and the one awesome thing I won was a labeled 'Large' prize of an actually small pikachu plush. Figured close enough, since Yes/No questions have a lot of room for various interpretations.)

I dunno, when it comes to spirituality side of it all I'm just super lost, like I tried talk to Artemis since out of all the gods I learned about over the years of research for various things, she was the one I enjoyed learning about the most? But that didn't work out so now I'm just like what now.

Also totally interested in making luck charms for myself and friends but as I've said, no cash lmao.

 

I haven't had any 'experiences' that I can think of right now, other than waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a dark sphere directly above my head that seemed to be looking at me. I was 14 at the time and after freezing up promptly covered my head with the blanket and curled into a ball for a little while. Pretty sure it was just a weird dream fragment or something tho.

I've been in haunted houses and not felt or seen a thing, despite my mother and various others in the family having seen ghosts a few times. Whenever I do get odd, strong feelings that are apprehensive or negative I can never find a reason for it. Happens in random places. But I feel good, happy, belonging feelings everywhere from certain buildings to towns to just being outside and reveling in the sky. Or pretty rocks and plants. Again, pretty sure it doesn't mean much.

Something I'm kind of amused by is how unruffled my feathers get when I'm visiting West Virginia in the summer. It's too green and I spend a lot of time wondering how it can be so green, this isn't natural, eeegh. I grew up in the southwest, where everything but the heat is muted, for the most part, so that's what i think that is.

 

So um right now I want to try and make a creativity charm to start out (if that is too complicated for someone just starting out pls stop me I feel like I'm just kind of bumbling around I have no idea which sources are reputable halp)
and I wanted feedback on the plan I made for how to construct it?
I was going to get a crystal, I think Labradorite was mentioned as associated with creativity? If i can't get that one maybe a general purpose quartz could do?
If it feels like it's attached to someone/something I should probably cleanse it I guess
Then I was going to tie it to my wrist with a silk band or ribbon (silk is very conducive to me and the act of tieing it in a not should keep the energy somewhat bound to the object), over the pulse point (because that is where I feel energy, idk where else I'd get a reasonable energy flow to direct into the object) and do something creative, like knit or draw for some time, trying to channel the energy into the crystal as I do that. Probably gonna have a candle lit during that to help focus somewhat.
Then I'd wrap the crystal with wire so you can wear it. Undecided which type of wire to use, not sure if copper/silver/gold interfere with the spell? (Do you think adding pearls on the wire would help bind the energy or would it inhibit the effect from doing its thing on the wearer?)

... does this sound liek it could work or am I forgetting a step?

 

I wouldn't use pearls in this one, since the intent to really more to release the energy into the wearer. Copper wire is probably what you want, it's one of the more conductive metals.