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

Sigils are not coming easily to me, so I started looking up other alphabets to try. And I just want to say that Theban is such bullshit, half these letters look just like each other, it's worse than Tengwar that way, I'd hate to be dyslexic and try to use it.

Also if you're making the damn thing up why would you merge I/J and U/V but still have all three of K/C/S? </cranky linguistics nerd>

 

I like this person's symbol/sigil-set - it's based on meaning, rather than weird letter manipulations, which feels better to me.

 

Oh! Hrmm. I wonder if I could find some way to use Tengwar in divination. I really love Tengwar because it's like Hangul in that it's set up based around classes of sounds. It also represents voicing! AND THAT PLEASES ME. Characters do look very similar but I memorize scripts like a boss and the rules of how the letters are made made learning it really easy.

 

I got a pretty decent one for FURY out of weird letter manipulations- it's nicely spiky and puts me in mind of trench knives and brass knuckles- but that's something I'm just putting aside in case of future need. What I need is calm and alertness and... I don't have a pithy term for "not overload" but that. And I'm not getting anything.

 

Well, for single words that sound properly myffic: GRACE, EASE, QUIET, or RELIEF, maybe?

 

Hullo! Does anyone know of any good resources for someone who's interested in getting into witchy stuff but has absolutely no clue where to start? Preferably things that are split into a lot of little bits and not in the form of large blocks of text because my brain is on cooldown from finals and can't process huge blocks of words very well. Am particularly interested in plant stuff, gemstone stuff, and stealthy stuff (I do not need to add "witchcraft" to the increasingly long list of things that I'm having trouble hiding from my parents).

 

Online:

I think if I was in your place, I'd hit up tumblr or pinterest and go search around in tags and find stuff you like. Posts and pins are more likely to be small packages of information on a single topic, and contain many many pretty pictures as well. Pretty pictures are good for brain mush. One of my RL friends keeps a pagan/witchy inspiration sideblog, and she keeps a tag for newbies. http://tuiliel.tumblr.com/tagged/for-witchlings

Offline:

Or! I've got no idea where you live, and what your time+mobility situation is, but can you find+visit a local metaphysical shop? Leave your wallet behind/with a friend, maybe, so you don't accidentally spend all your money in a fit of oooh shiny magpie syndrome. If this is an option, just...yeah, browse around. Ask other people there questions, flip through books that look neat, pick up and play with shiny rocks, see if the feeling or intuition you get from 'what is this rock's energy like? How does it make me feel or imagine?' matches up with what other people or references say. (And if they don't match up, fuck 'em, go with your gut anyhow.) Unless you have sensitivities to a concentrated incense/candle smell, places like this are a sensory delight with all the stuff you can look at and pick up and learn about.

Also offline: Is there any kind of regular group/meetup/student-run organization based on or near your university?

Online/Offline: Just hanging out with and making friends with people who knew more than me about magic, witchy stuff, polytheism, etc, went a long way for me.

Stealthy stuff: In general, start learning about geology/herbalism/botany anyways? What you know about the material and physical nature of rocks and trees and herbs and crystals, it informs and enriches the magical side. As above, so below, right?

Caveat: I'm aware some of these suggestions are a little biased towards extroverts and people with pretty free/mobile transportation. Speaking from my own experience is also, yeah, speaking from a position of privilege. I hope other people can fill in with what I might have overlooked?

 

There's a witchipedia! I use them all the time for herb stuff. It's pretty well organized.

 

@Zuki
The offline options are not possible because of where I live. The closest thing to anything that you mentioned is that there is a gem/jewelry-making/general shiny stuff store that has a pretty good selection of Fancy Rocks. Also there's like a health food store that has a pretty good selection of dried herbs (beyond just the standard eating varieties) if that's a useful thing? *shrugs*
Re: online stuff, just the sheer number of sources available kinda makes my brain nope out because waaaayyy too much information to sort through, so people shoving a few specific links at me and saying "here look at this" is a lot more effective than me just sorta flailing around the internet looking for stuff.

 

http://www.witchipedia.com/ boop!

 

Does anyone else draw holy symbols on themselves and their belongings here. Like even if it's not permanent I cover myself and other things with it. If I could I would write on my walls too. I also put it on things like my tests at school or on blue books. And I like to draw them in dirt. I try to make sure that things outside of my body or my books the marks can be removed easily though. Because politeness. That and I try to keep them off shit that is other people's holy stuff. Like I wouldn't do this on a church or a church's property.

 

I'll do sigils on my hands in various markers occasionally, usually on the webbing between my left thumb and forefinger. I'll frequently draw my ward-sigil in the air or on someone with my fingers. When my husband flew out alone for a funeral, the "casual meaningless doodles on partner's leg when they sit next to you" contained sigils for protection while traveling and against evil. Wore a spell-sigil keyed to my dad for several days when he was sick (which was an interesting conversation with my boss, whoops) and occasionally if I'm having trouble in my job of Find Things I'll scribble an All-Seeing-Eye on my hands. And my scan-gun. And my label maker. And my list. And...

 

I do sigils and stuff on things and myself, but not really holy symbols.

 

I don't do sigils myself because I don't really get them. They're not a part of my thing at all so yeah. The closest I can think of to that would be writing out particular paritta chants or something. Those being protective chanting of particular Buddhist scriptures.

 

I am exactly the opposite, "holy" symbols mean absolutely nothing to me because I'm not religious ._. Have caught myself doodling my protection sigil when stressed, so... I guess that's a thing?

 

I've doodled alchemical symbols for Iron in the hopes of feeling less tired.

 

I doodle constantly if I have a pen and paper/skin/whatever, so yeah.

I plan to get various tattoos in time and at least some of those will be religious in nature.

 

Write fuck you in Irish in ogham on yourself.

 

*cackles at Aondeug*

I draw runes on stuff all the time! Usually just stuff like, Algiz and Raidho on my car in snow or dust for protection while traveling. I've never really experimented with bind-runes much or sigil Magic--but there's a particular not-quite-rune Lightning/solar wheel/solar cross design I associate with Tlachtgha that I like to draw--it's something that helps me find/connect with her.

 

I've been not wanting to meditate when upset for a while. Did last night though and it's somewhat weird just how quickly it shut things down. Like yeah it took a minute or so, but it was an almost immediate end to the feelings. Stayed that way too which was nice. God, meditation is weird. I also like what this says about my progress with it. I'm not as diligent with it as I should be, but god damn can I get into the mood fast and I can do it while everything is falling to shit. It's not enough, but that's progress and it's been lasting progress.

Need to be more on the ball with forcing myself to meditate when upset. Because it really does work well with me.