he Poison Path involves the study of traditional ritual entheogens and their use in magic and witchcraft to aid in the achievement of ecstasy, trance, shape-shifting, soul-flight, spirit-sight, sex magic, prophetic visions, and mystic communion with deity. These plants are also used in incense, ointment, oil, potion, and sabbat wine recipes to aid in ones magical workings and sabbat rites. This path is not for everyone and requires extensive research to prevent harm. Besides reading, one of the best ways to gain knowledge and experience is to grow these herbs yourself from seed to better understand them as well as have the raw materials to work with. I would even go as far as to suggest becoming successful at growing them before using them in recipes and rituals as it is my belief the plant spirits are less likely to cause you great harm if they have a good personal relationship with you.

In searching for a reading list of books focused on poisons, entheogens, and witchcraft, I came up empty-handed and so decided it was high time I come up with a list myself for others to use for reference. I hope within this list you find books that call to you and best suit the focus of your interests. If you have any favourites that aren’t listed here, please feel free to add them in the comments!

Encyclopedia of Aphrodisiacs: Psychoactive Substances for Use in Sexual Practices

by Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling (Park Street Press, 2013)

If you are mainly interested in incorporating ritual entheogens into your magical practice for sex magic or you specialize in love and lust magic – this is the book for you. It’s gigantic and it’s pricey (it is an encyclopedia after all), but the research that went into each plant profile is worth it. It is full of traditional rituals, preparations, dosages, folklore, history, scientific data, as well as full-colour images.

Encyclopedia of Pyschoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications

by Christian Rätsch (Park Street Press, 2005)

If you wish to follow the poison path, this is your bible. Within this encyclopedia you are sure to find plants native to your bioregion or used by your ancestors for magic, ritual, and intoxication. I’ve spent many a weekend curled up in a chair lost for hours within its pages. Christian Rätsch is a German anthropologist (with a doctorate in Native American cultures), an ethnopharmacologist, and a prolific author on the subject of psychoactive plants (though many of his works are only available in German). Each entry is full of scientific data and research which is balanced with folklore, magico-religious uses and traditions, as well as recipes and dosages (a rarity among books on entheogens).

Hallucinogens and Shamanism

Edited by Michael Harner (Oxford University Press, 1973)

Whatever your opinion of Michael Harner, this early work is a very academic collection of articles on traditional hallucinogenic plants used by pre-Christians of Europe as well as animistic cultures who practice shamanism. It is often the only book you will find in a public library on entheogens. If you have no issue wading through academia to get to the gems of lore and experiences, you will be able to glean a lot of knowledge from this book.

Herbs & Things: A Compendium of Practical and Exotic Herb Lore

by Jeanne Rose (Perigree Trade, 1973 / Last Gasp, 2011)

Jeanne Roses’ Herbal is an unexpected treasure that would’ve been lost to the magical community if not for its recent reprint due to her current success as a professional herbalist and author. This unconventional herbal has a good section on aphrodisiacs where she’ll teach you how to make a marijuana tincture and a sweet cocaine oil alongside the more conventional recipes using damiana and yohimbe. Have insomnia or a lot of trouble sleeping? Jeanne recommends tisanes which have belladonna, mistletoe, or hash as ingredients. Within the encyclopedic Materia Medica section you’ll find entries on all the well-known poisons and entheogens and even some you’ve never heard of. Each entry covers medicinal usage and nuggets of lore. Hidden in the back of the book is a section titled “The Secrets” which is full of recipes for poisonous flying ointments (most without dosage), amulets, incenses, as well as rituals for summoning spirits and the devil. An excellent and entertaining book for students of both medicinal herbalism and the poison path.

Magical and Ritual Uses of Aphrodisiacs

By Richard Alan Miller (Destiny Books, 1985)

Look past its slimness and tacky cover and you will find a book full of psychoactive and aphrodisiac herbs with scientific data on the chemical constituents, effects and side effects of each plant followed by magical and ritual uses and sometimes dosages and recipes. Worthy of special notice here is Miller’s damiana liqueur recipe – I’ve made it to his specification and, even though my damiana wasn’t the freshest, the liqueur tasted divine and disappeared quickly! I highly recommend it as an aphrodisiac to share with your lover at least 30 minutes before getting down to business. The smoking blend recipe called “Yoruba Gold” is also worthy of attention with its easy to obtain ingredients and euphoric cannabis-like effects. I used to make the blend for sale as an aphrodisiac and many a male customer reported a happy wife and a happy life for him. An excellent book to start with for those wishing to explore plants to use for sex magic.

Magical and Ritual Uses of Herbs

by Richard Alan Miller (Destiny Books, 1983)

This innocuously titled book was once subtitled “A Magical Text on Legal Highs,” and is a perfect beginner’s book to the poison path. Its one flaw is that its focus is mainly on exotic and New World herbs many people may not be able to obtain or be interested in using. What sets Miller’s books apart from others are the sections for each plant on its chemistry, effects, and side effects as well as sections on preparation and ritual use — he goes much further than most authors in his research. At the back of the book is a very useful reference chart which lists the active chemicals, the best preparation methods (tea, tincture, external, etc), and the type of effect (euphoric, hallucinogen, sedative, etc) of many more plants than are covered in the materia medica section (including the solanaceae family). Overall, this book is a practical guide one can actual apply to their magical practice making it worth tracking down a second-hand copy.

Mystic Mandrake

by C. J. S. Thompson (University Books, 1968)

Some people are just mandrake people, enamoured as they are with this plant, they enter into a monogamous relationship with it as their only poisonous plant ally. As someone who works with mandrake, I can see why, it is the most pleasant and less dangerous herb of the solanaceae family. If you are in love with mandragora officinarum, this is pretty much the only book in existence dedicated solely to its study. It is not a practical book, so do not expect dosages, recipes, or rituals. The Mystic Mandrake is a purely academic work focusing solely on Mandrake’s history and folklore written by the once curator of the Royal College of Surgeons Museum. Despite its impracticality, it is still an excellent source of lore on ancient uses of the mandrake in magic and medicine that will take you on a global trek of this infamous root’s history. The only other book devoted solely to the mandrake is Scarlet Imprint’s Mandragora anthology mentioned below.

Pharmako/Poeia, Pharmako/Dynamis, and Pharmako/Gnosis

by Dale Pendell (North Atlantic Books, 2010)

Pharmako is the root of pharmacist from the ancient Greek – the Greeks used it to mean herbalist or witch. I describe Dale Pendell’s Pharmako trilogy as an alchemical poetic treatise on the psychoactive properties of plants. In Pendell’s world plants are living breathing sentient beings much wiser and older than ourselves who should be treated with respect and honoured as elders. This trilogy is about Pendell’s own trip down the rabbit hole speaking from the point of views of the shaman, apprentice, and plant spirit. These books themselves are mind-altering — you must change your perception of a book to read them — and you do not come away from reading them unchanged. I consider this series essential to those who would be green or hedge witches and walk the path of poison as they will make you question if you truly wish to do so. As Victor Anderson said “everything worthwhile is dangerous”.

Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation

by Stephen Harrod Buhner (Brewers Publications, 1998)

Alcohol is its own poison. If you are a home brewer on top of being a herbalist and follower of the path of poison – this will likely be your favourite book. Being all three myself, I couldn’t put it down as soon as I bought it from the bookstore, ignoring the friends that were with me and randomly shouting out things like “oh my gods, there’s a mandrake beer recipe!” There’s actually an entire section on “Psychotropic and Highly Inebriating Beers” full of recipes using clary sage, henbane, mandrake, wild lettuce, and wormwood. This book isn’t just about beer, it also covers meads and wines, the recipes and rituals of surviving indigenous cultures, as well as a good chunk of lore on the history of fermented beverages used as ritual intoxicants. If you like beer and mead, herbs and magic, get this book.

The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia

by Paul Devereux (Daily Grail Publishing, 2008)

I haven’t read this book yet, but it’s high on my wanted book list as a work focusing on the ritual and spiritual uses of psychoactive plants by prehistoric peoples. From the back cover: “Using a slew of disciplines – including archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnobotany, biology and other fields – The Long Trip strips bare the evidence for the psychedelic experiences of various prehistoric societies and ancient, traditional cultures. It is probably the most comprehensive single volume to look at the use of mind-altering drugs, or entheogens, for ritual and shamanistic purposes throughout humanity’s long story, while casting withering sidelong glances at our own times”

Toads and Toadstools: The Natural History, Mythology and Cultural Oddities of This Strange Association

by Adrian Morgan (Ten Speed Press, 1996)

This is a coffee table quality of book for lovers of toads and poisonous mushrooms filled with beautiful colour illustrations and more lore than you can handle. It is full of information on poisonous and hallucinogenic mushrooms, their magical and ritual use, witchcraft associations, and folklore. The toad also gets its own chapters which are the most comprehensive and detailed magical and folkloric sources on toads that I have found. Fly agaric receives its own chapter as do the toadstools of the Old and New Worlds. There is an entire section on flying ointments as well. The added bonus of this book is that the author covers their own experiences in working with the poisons of toads, mushrooms, and ointments on top of covering historical and magical lore. I wish this were available as a hardcover, but the paperback is so beautiful I easily forget my wishful thinking.

Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine

by Marcello Pennacchio, Lara Jefferson, and Kayri Havens (Oxford University Press, 2010)

This is purely an academic reference book, not meant to be read cover to cover, but to use when looking up a specific plant. It is a slim and pricey hardcover, but, if your poisonous interests lay more in the crafting of incense and smudge, it is worth owning. I’ve found some gems of traditional European incense recipes used for magic. It is also full of the historical uses of witches’ favourite psychoactive herbs as incense and fumigations.

Veneficium: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path

by Daniel A. Schulke (Three Hands Press, 2012)

This is one of the very few works out there purely focused on the poison path and the use of poisonous plants in witchcraft, written specifically for practitioners. That said, it is not a functional grimoire like Schulke’s other works, but a book exploring the history and lore of the poison path as well as some of the author’s own experiences (Schulke is known for his love of belladonna). Of particular interest to me is the highlight on Hekate and the poisons associated with her and her worship. Veneficium could be better organized and it is a difficult read, following the tradition of sabbatic witchcraft authors (you may need a Latin dictionary), but I believe it is meant to be more abstract than practical with each chapter presented as a unique essay. However, if you are a fan of works by members of the Cultus Sabbati, this will be a must-own book for you.

Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants

by Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl (Inner Traditions, 2003)

This book is a witch’s dream, especially those who practice ancient Greek magic as the authors give full correspondences from the ancient Greeks for their deities along with traditional ointments and incenses used in ritual to invoke and give offerings to gods. Witchcraft Medicine doesn’t just focus on the Greek however – it also focuses on Celtic and Germanic plant medicine – on the whole, the book covers animism, shamanism, and witchcraft and how they are related. The gem of this book for me are the sections that detail which herbs (including many poisons and entheogens) were sacred to which ancient deities as well as how they were used and descriptions of the rituals. All of the authors have Ph.D’s in their respective fields making this book as full of excellent research as it is beautifully laid out with illustrations and photographs. The only issues with this book are some goddess-worship fakelore incidents (mostly in Storl’s chapters) and a tendency of the authors to make leading or opinion-based statements as facts — though these are few throughout the book. This is more of a coffee table book on witchcraft and ritual entheogens, but much lore can still be gleaned from it and applied to one’s practice.

Books For Pleasure:

Datura: An Anthology of Esoteric Poesis

Edited by Ruby Sara (Scarlet Imprint, 2011)

This is a swoon-worthy collection of essays, poems, and prose by various well-known authors in the occult community focusing on datura, ecstasy, intoxication, and the creative process. I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of modern poetry, I prefer my Tennyson and Keats, but the poems within Datura had my spirit soaring, heart racing, and mind swooning. This is an anthology for artists, poets, magicians, and lovers of the datura family. You will not go unmoved.

Mandragora: Further Explorations in Esoteric Poesis

Edited by Ruby Sara (Scarlet Imprint, 2012)

Because I fell so in love with their previous poetic anthology, Mandragora is at the top of my list for the next book I purchase. I even wish I’d found out about it in time to submit a piece of my own. From the publisher: “the poetry in Mandragora drives deep into the humus heart of experience – spellwork, praise, story, song. From the breathless brevity of haiku through the humming rhythm of the long meditation the thread of hidden history runs, telling in mosaic the story of the occultist, the witch, the worshipper, the scholar and the celebrant.”

The Poison Diaries

by Jane, Duchess of Northumberland, illustrated by Colin Stimpson (Harry N. Abrams, 2007)

A gorgeously illustrated children’s book that is just as delightful for adults. It tells the story of a young orphan boy named Weed who is taken in by his uncle, a very unpleasant man who happens to run an apothecary. Weed discovers his uncle’s secret garden full of poisons and the plants proceed to teach him about themselves, their uses, and the different ways they kill people. The author also happens to run the Alnwick Poison Garden and her love and familiarity with these plants shows through in her writing. I was impressed with how she portrays each plant’s personality, which were pretty accurate for me — friendly and helpful, but still willing to kill you for shits and giggles if you don’t keep your wits about you. The talented illustrator Colin Stimpson does an amazing job with each plant — creating one traditional botanical illustration and one of the plant’s spirit for each poisonous herb. It is recommended for ages 8 and up, but the content is pretty dark and it is not a happy tale with a happy ending, in the gothic Victorian tradition, so it’s up to you to judge if your child is mature enough to read it.

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities

by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books, 2009)

This little book is not useful or witchcraft-focused, but it is still a cute and enjoyable read (I get the impression this is the book poisoner’s keep in their bathroom). It is largely anecdotal, but would be a good way to begin teaching children about poisonous plants and just why they shouldn’t touch them or put them in their mouths. It was given to me as a gift, and while there are some unsubstantiated bits presented as facts, overall it is a good read with good research and the bibliography gives you many more resources to track down. If you’re a home brewer this book also has a companion volume by the same author titled The Drunken Botanist.

Online Reading:

Entheology.com
Erowid.org
If Witches No Longer Fly: Today’s Pagans and the Solanaceous Plants by Chas S. Clifton
Introduction to Flying Ointments by Sarah Lawless
Plant Hallucinogens as Magical Medicines by Angelika Börsch-Haubold
Some Thoughts on Flying Ointments by Harrold Roth

hen I was very young and gullible, my first witchcraft teacher had convinced me they were exactly what I wanted and needed. It took a few months for the glamour to crack, but when it did I realized that my teacher was both mentally and physically ill and had been able to fool me (at least for a short time) because they 100% believed in their delusions. This is how many of us get suckered, no matter how clever and educated we are. When a very magnetic person in a leadership role fully believes in their delusions, other people will believe them too because they are so convincing in their faith. Such persons can be very dangerous to those believing in magic to the point that it inspired me to write an entire article on the subject a couple of years ago titled: “Maintaining a Healthy Level of Skepticism“. After having escaped the clutches of my insane first teacher, I quickly learned the importance of getting my hands dirty by doing some detective work before taking on a teacher or following a tradition by interviewing current and former students and doing a lot of fact-checking. It has kept me out of a lot of bad situations since.

Shortly after what I call “the Baba Yaga incident“, I was invited to join a coven of which many of my friends were members. I was very tempted because I was already so close to the majority of those in the coven and I loved that most of their rituals were performed out doors in the forest. Despite my temptation, I did some detective work anyway as my burn was still fresh. I talked to some past students of the high priestess and they did not have anything good to say about her. An elder in the local community admitted to me that it was a secret that the high priestess had gotten her third degree online and not from the physical initiation that was required to be a member and high priestess of the tradition she was teaching. I then met with her for tea one day and quickly realized that training with this high priestess would be like walking on glass due to her egocentric and controlling attitude. I knew about Isaac Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame and she met far too many of the factors for my comfort. I told her thanks but no thanks and continued to simply be friends with the members.

Less than a year after this, the coven self-imploded after the high priestess’ ego had gotten the better of her, leading to favouritism, infighting, members quitting, the ostracisation of members she didn’t like, the warlocking (the formal removal of a coven member and stripping of their degrees and lineage) of those who stood up to her, and a very public display of crazy at a large event. Everyone quit after they couldn’t take her erratic behaviour and drama-queendom any more. Needless to say, I was very glad I had done my research and dodged that bullet. I was sad that some of my friends were hurt, but it was even sadder that this woman was continued to be considered a respected elder in the community despite the harm she’d done and lives she’d ruined. Most of the former coven members disappeared from the community and there was no one left to call bullshit. I’ve seen this happen far too often –everyone being too afraid, too polite, too disappeared, or too ignorant to speak a bad word about a person in a leadership role who should not be.

In doing background checks on two traditional witchcraft paths I was interested in early on, I discovered that both male leaders were misogynists with unchecked egos who had lied about their source material (aka they’d thieved it). One was a secret racist and both had a secret desire to create a cult. To discover these unpleasant facts I had talked to their past students and acquaintances as well as the two men in question. The reality was a huge turn off, my interest was gone, and I walked away. Yet another path I was interested in was full of infighting, drama queens, and name calling — all of it coming from the leaders of the tradition and not the followers as one would expect. It was not worth sorting out who was telling the truth or not with such childish behaviour going on. It’s not a good sign when covens following the same tradition can’t get along. Again, I walked away. Eventually I did find a good teacher who restored my faith in the leadership of the magical community. It gave me hope that others wouldn’t settle and, instead, wait it out to find a good teacher who wouldn’t lie or abuse their leadership role.

The moral of these stories is that it is very important to look into the person behind the writings, teachings, and belief system you are following or want to follow. How balanced and grounded is this person in reality and every day life? What is the state of this person’s personal and home life? Is it chaos, broken relationships, and a home that’s taken hoarding to an unhealthy level? Have they lost friends and family due to unacceptable social behaviour? Do you actually like this person and agree with them, the things they’ve done, and how they live(d) their life? Are you okay following someone with an unchecked mental illness, someone who’s killed or raped, someone who is a pathological liar, a racist, or who stole all their lore? No? Then you should be aware that many of the founders and teachers of magical traditions, both well-known and obscure, had skeletons in their closets that we aren’t dealing with today. Some of their transgressions are forgivable, but many are not.

Gerald Gardner was such a sensationalist and media whore that half his original coven abandoned him, not happy about the bricks thrown through windows, after he went public and outed everyone. Wicca’s founder was an exhibitionist and not in keeping with Wicca’s reputation for secrecy. He was a notorious liar and thief when it came to his source material and he was also a reported creeper and bondage freak by the former female members of his coven, including Doreen Valiente. Today we laugh it off as him just being a dirty old man and nudist with a trickster’s heart — look at his crazy hair, isn’t he adorable?

Alex Sanders and Sybil Leek both lied about their background and initiation stories (which they had the gall to publish as books), were both shameless media whores like Gardner, and used the media to gain fame in a way not seen since (okay, maybe Fiona Horne and Christian Day come close). The father of modern Traditional Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane (aka Roy Bowers), had a history of mental illness, dosed coven members with dangerous poisons without their knowledge, viciously blasted Gardner and the adherents of Wicca in early witchcraft periodicals under a pseudonym (possibly starting the first witch war), and continually cheated on his wife which led to her filing for divorce. Shortly after, he killed himself by taking an overdose of his antidepressant meds mixed with belladonna and hellebore. It took him over a week to die in the hospital as he didn’t take a strong enough dose and ended up in a coma. Not the mysterious and magical myth of his life and death most of his followers will tell.

Aleister Crowley was most definitely a sociopath as demonstrated by his lack of empathy for the people he performed magical and mind control experiments on combined with his egotistical and irrational behaviour which resulted in several deaths, including his fellow K2 climbers whom he let die in an avalanche because they had disagreed with him earlier, not wanting him as their expedition leader. Crowley left quite the trail of angry, broken, mentally ill, and suicidal people in his wake. Accounts of his life and personality, including his Wikipedia entry, have been incredibly white-washed for a modern audience to better stomach. Oh, and besides having a sexual scat fetish and a heroin (cocaine, hash, opium/laudanum) addiction, he also made one of his female followers have sex with a goat. Lovely poetry he wrote though… *coughs uncomfortably and looks for a brain eraser*. None of this has stopped countless people from following his teachings or popular musicians from using him to sell t-shirts and albums or me from attending my Thelemic friends’ annual feast of Liber Al vel Legis. I don’t even want to get into Gavin and Yvonne Frost condoning pedophilia and incest to initiate children into the craft at puberty in their book The Witch’s Bible. I could go on, but it only goes downhill from here folks.

You’d ask around about a prospective teacher who you’re interested in training with in order to find out other people’s experiences and impressions about them – why wouldn’t you do the same for an author or a “Big Name Pagan” – alive or dead? There are so many authors who have either stolen or completely made up their content that they would take up an entire post on their own. There is far too much white-washing going on in the occult, pagan, and witchcraft communities for my liking when it comes to our leaders and teachers. It’s so much easier to conveniently forget and push aside all the unpleasant things a person has done and cherry pick the parts we like instead of questioning if we should be following and passing on that person’s teachings at all.

You can’t take the cards that scare you out of a tarot deck and expect an accurate reading and you can’t subtract an author or teacher’s negative qualities expecting the things you like to be an accurate representation of them and their beliefs. People are three-dimensional and, to understand them, you need to know the bad things too. We are all human and we all have flaws – teachers are not gods and should not be placed on pedestals — they are just people. Maybe one teacher is on an FBI watch list for a murder they can’t prove he did or maybe another made up their entire tradition and are passing it off as something ancient. In knowing the more unpleasant facts about a teacher, you can better determine what you will tolerate and what is unacceptable. From there you should be able to figure out which teachings you’d like to keep and which you’d like to douse with gasoline and set on fire.

In conclusion, please care about the people behind the books, teachings, and traditions of our greater magical community. Please care enough to do background checks and fact checks. There is no need to immediately stop incorporating the teachings of anyone who was a degenerate or an asshole, but be aware of that facet of their personality alongside their magical teachings. When you recommend their works or teachings to students, please disclose the full context and make them aware of the bad along with the good. There is no need to perpetuate hurt and disillusionment in our students through silence and selective memory. The truth hurts, but it will set us free.

References:

Greenfield, Alan. “A True History of Witchcraft“. 1992.
Johns, June. King of the Witches: The World of Alex Sanders. Coward-McCann, 1970.
Leek, Sybil. Diary of a Witch. Prentice Hall, 1968.
Semple, Gavin. A Poisoned Chalice: The Death of Robert Cochrane. Reineke Verlag, 2004.
Serith, Ceiswr. “The Charge of the Goddess: A Source Analysis“. 2006.
Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. Phoenix Publishing, 1989.

itch, pharmakon, demi-goddess, princess, niece of Circe, fierce devotee of Hecate, and beloved sorceress of ancient Greek and Roman literature. Whether a fictional or historical figure, Medea has always fascinated me. Mandragora My favourite tale featuring the witch Medea is Apollonius Rhodius’ The Argonautica from around 200 BC (though its sources are so old as to be indeterminate). This famous tale of Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving Hellenistic epic. It is hard to say if it is legend or myth, fact or fiction, but the tale has enchanted mortals for millennia.

Today it exists in the form of numerous movies, tv episodes, children’s books, and even as a video game. The beauty of the survival of such an ancient epic from pre-Christian times are the rituals and magic that have survived along with it. Enshrouded within the pages of The Argonautica is Medea’s ritual of the Mandrake. It is in fact two rituals — one of the harvest and one of the consecration of this famous magical root. Combining the ritual fragments from this epic with other knowledge of ancient Greek magic, one is able to reconstruct these rites so they may be performed today.

The Ritual of the Harvest

In the following excerpt from The Argonautica the witch Medea has fallen in love with the foreigner Jason and decides to betray king and country to aid him in his quest for the golden fleece by preparing a special liniment for Jason to anoint himself with:

“And she called to her maids. Twelve they were, who lay during the night in the vestibule of her fragrant chamber, young as herself, not yet sharing the bridal couch, and she bade them hastily yoke the mules to the chariot to bear her to the beauteous shrine of Hecate. Thereupon the handmaids were making ready the chariot; and Medea meanwhile took from the hollow casket a charm which men say is called the charm of Prometheus. If a man should anoint his body therewithal, having first appeased the Maiden, the only-begotten, with sacrifice by night, surely that man could not be wounded by the stroke of bronze nor would he flinch from blazing fire; but for that day he would prove superior both in prowess and in might.

It shot up first-born when the ravening eagle on the rugged flanks of Caucasus let drip to the earth the blood-like ichor of tortured Prometheus. And its flower appeared a cubit above ground in colour like the Corycian crocus, rising on twin stalks; but in the earth the root was like newly-cut flesh. The dark juice of it, like the sap of a mountain-oak, she had gathered in a Caspian shell to make the charm withal, when she had first bathed in seven ever-flowing streams, and had called seven times on Brimo, nurse of youth, night-wandering Brimo, of the underworld, queen among the dead,—in the gloom of night, clad in dusky garments. And beneath, the dark earth shook and bellowed when the Titanian root was cut; and the son of Iapetus himself groaned, his soul distraught with pain. And she brought the charm forth and placed it in the fragrant band which engirdled her, just beneath her bosom, divinely fair.”

“Medea” by Evelyn de Morgan (1855-1919)

It is amusing to realize that Medea and her twelve handmaids make a “coven” of thirteen at the shrine of Hecate – though having a number of thirteen isn’t stated to be important to this ritual. Comparing this passage to other bits of Greek mythology we find that the “charm of Prometheus” is in fact the mandrake root (Mandragora officinarum). The Titan Prometheus was known as a teacher of plant knowledge and medicine. According to myth, the mandrake sprung up from the ichor (poisonous god-blood) of Prometheus as it soaked into the earth during his torturous punishment by Zeus for gifting humankind with intelligence and wisdom. To the ancient Greeks and Romans, mandrake was sacred to Hecate and believed to grow in her garden, so Medea’s invocation of Hecate before harvesting the root makes perfect sense.

Before harvesting the mandrake root, Medea bathes in the waters of seven ever-flowing streams. Bathing before approaching or working with nature spirits or supernatural spirits is a common practice in animistic and pre-Christian cultures throughout the world. Not only does the water purify the bather spiritually, but physical cleanliness is also a sign of respect and common sense. Many spirits were believed to be offended by the stench of humans and would be able to easily locate and strike down a smelly person. The loophole one can take here is that the passage doesn’t specify the seven streams must come from different sources. I was lucky enough to find a small nearby mountain with more than seven streams, which never dry out, flowing from its top from the same artesian source. To make this process easier on myself I collect water from each stream, asking each spirit for permission first, and bring the waters home for later use. Don’t skimp out – make sure you collect the waters of all seven streams as seven is an important and repeated number in this rte.

Now that you’re shiny clean and have waited until the last of the sun’s rays have disappeared leaving the world in darkness, Medea instructs to go to the site where you will harvest the mandrake root wearing “dusky raiment” or darkly coloured clothing. Medea’s favourite harvesting haunts usually involve graveyards, but it’s more likely you’ll be harvesting from a pot in your yard or living room. Invoke Hecate seven times, clearly and loudly.

“Hekate Einodia, Trioditis, lovely dame,
of earthly, watery, and celestial frame,
sepulchral, in a saffron veil arrayed,
pleased with dark ghosts that wander through the shade;
Perseis, solitary goddess, hail!
The world’s key-bearer, never doomed to fail;
in stags rejoicing, huntress, nightly seen,
and drawn by bulls, unconquerable queen;
Leader, Nymphe, nurse, on mountains wandering,
hear the supplicants who with holy rites thy power revere,
and to the herdsman with a favouring mind draw near.”

— Orphic Hymn to Hecate (2-3rd Century BC)

After the invocation, Medea pulls up the mandrake root. If the ground is dry and hard, water around it first to make the root more easily let go of the earth. Once pulled from the ground, Medea stores the root whole in a “hollow casket” — a chest or box to keep it in a cool, dark place for storage. When needed, Medea takes it out and juices the root. Mature mandrake roots are tough and not so easy to juice so it’s likely she used a mortar and pestle of some kind. She puts the juice in a shell from the Caspian sea, but any non-metallic vessel would do. It’s likely she also places it in a sealed vessel after for easier storage and transport to deliver it to Jason.

And so ends the first half of the ritual. I have also used this part of the rite to cleanse myself before handling dried mandrake root to be used after in the making of magical potions and ointments. I recite the Hymn to Hecate once and then call her name seven times. The concoction is set to infuse that same night and the following night (or a few days or weeks later) the second half of the ritual is performed to consecrate (or “activate”) the magical substance for use.

The Ritual of Consecration

The second half of the ritual is no less easy and a lot more gruesome. The rewards, Medea says, are power and strength to match the Gods themselves. From my own experiences with mandrake, I can say with certainty that it does give one unnatural stamina and energy making it excellent for sex magic or ecstatic rituals lasting all day or all night. Medea gives the fresh mandrake juice “charm” to Jason with the following instructions:

“Take heed now, that I may devise help for thee. When at thy coming my father has given thee the deadly teeth from the dragon’s jaws for sowing, then watch for the time when the night is parted in twain, then bathe in the stream of the tireless river, and alone, apart from others, clad in dusky raiment, dig a rounded pit; and therein slay a ewe, and sacrifice it whole, heaping high the pyre on the very edge of the pit. And propitiate only-begotten Hecate, daughter of Perses, pouring from a goblet the hive-stored labour of bees. And then, when thou hast heedfully sought the grace of the goddess, retreat from the pyre; and let neither the sound of feet drive thee to turn back, nor the baying of hounds, lest haply thou shouldst maim all the rites and thyself fail to return duly to thy comrades. And at dawn steep this charm in water, strip, and anoint thy body therewith as with oil; and in it there will be boundless prowess and mighty strength, and thou wilt deem thyself a match not for men but for the immortal gods. And besides, let thy spear and shield and sword be sprinkled. Thereupon the spear-heads of the earthborn men shall not pierce thee, nor the flame of the deadly bulls as it rushes forth resistless. But such thou shalt be not for long, but for that one day; still never flinch from the contest.”

“Jason et Médée” by Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

Again, dress yourself in darkly coloured clothing and venture out alone at midnight. Bathe in a stream or river that never dries up or use the waters of seven streams you have collected. The Argonautica passage does not say so, but I would highly recommend invoking Hecate again, seven times, before proceeding. It doesn’t have to be at a crossroad, but one would be a perfect location for an offering to Hecate. After bathing and invoking, dig a round pit in the earth and slit the throat of a female sheep so that its blood flows into the hole and then place the body on a “funeral” pyre of wood right next to the pit. Light the pyre and let it burn well.

I realize this part is very unlikely to happen today unless you should be a sheep farmer devoted to Hecate. In records of other rituals and offerings to Hecate, it is clear she simply likes blood. You could spill a few drops of your own or some pig or cow’s blood from a butcher, burning it on a charcoal in a censer with an incense made with juniper (a traditional ancient sacrifice and funerary wood – also sacred to Hecate) instead of a large pyre. If you’re still too squeamish for that, try red wine or pomegranate juice instead, though the results may not be the same. Next, pour a cup of good unpasteurized honey into the pit.

I add another step here when I am making potions, ointments, or charms from mandrake root using Theocritus’ words from his 3rd century BC poetry to consecrate the creation. I present it to the pit and recite:

“Moon, shine brightly; softly will I sing for you Goddess, and for Hecate in the underworld — the dogs tremble before her when she comes over the graves and the dark blood. I welcome you Hecate, the grim one, stay by me until the end. Make this magical substance as effective as that of Circe, of Medea, and of the blond Perimede.”

Now you fill in the pit and walk away without looking back. You must NOT look back not matter what happens or what you hear. This is a recurring theme in Greek myth and rites — especially when it comes to leaving offerings to underworld deities. Horrible things happen to those who look back… usually involving an untimely and gruesome death for insulting the Gods (remember what happened to Orpheus?). You might be lucky to escape with insanity, however. When the sun rises, Jason mixes the mandrake juice in a cup of water and covers his naked body in the mixture. Note that he uses it externally and does not drink it. With its help he succeeds in his quest to steal the golden fleece and bring it back to his homeland, taking Medea with him as his new wife. When the sun rises, use the mandrake potion or ointment you have made or wear the mandrake talisman. According to Medea’s instructions, the effects will last for the day until sunrise the following day. The effects of an external application of potent fresh mandrake could easily last for 12-24 hours.

Medea’s potion, being fresh with no preservative measures taken, had no shelf-life and had to be used right away. If you have used this ritual to consecrate a jar of mandrake ointment (usually with a shelf-life of 1-3 years), then the time period for its magical potency will be for whenever you actually use it, rather than only the day following the night you performed the ritual. Be careful what you use it for and be respectful and responsible in wielding the power of the mandrake which is also the power of the Titans Prometheus and Hecate.

Keys of the Moon

The crossed keys are a symbol of the keys to heaven, but in this illustration are used to represent the keys to the moon and its sacred mysteries. The owl and the Luna Moth are both sacred to the moon and can help you learn its secrets and discover its connection to the underworld and the spirits of the dead. (Original – black archival ink on recycled paper)

"Longevity Sigil" by Sarah Anne Lawless

Longevity Sigil

This illustration is meant to be a wearable (as a tattoo) or frame-able (as artwork) talisman to promote good health and longevity. The cicada has been a symbol of immortality and renewal for thousands of years, prominently featured in world mythology. Hidden within the cicada’s body is the alchemical symbol for the sun – giver of health and life. Like the cicada, the new moon is also a symbol of renewal. The moon may wax and wane, but with each new moon it is reborn and so can never die. At the base of the talisman is a bind rune for good health. Whether you are in good health or suffering, may this sigil serve and keep you well. (Original – black archival ink on recycled paper)

"Lucifer's Sigil" by Sarah Anne Lawless

Lucifer’s Sigil

Lucifer is the lightbringer, akin to the titan Prometheus who gifted mankind with fire and intelligence. This piece incorporates the traditional sigil of Lucifer and is inspired by the Luciferian’s love of goats in relation to the deity of cunning and magic. The goat represents the Father of Witches, the sabbatic goat, the lore of Baphomet, as well as the trickster gods around the world represented as goats. Hang on your wall, place on your altar, or wear on your skin in honour of the divine trickster and to draw intelligence and wisdom yourself. (Original – black archival ink on recycled paper)

"Owl-Head Moth" by Sarah Anne Lawless

Owl-Head Moth

A simpler version of “Keys to the Underworld”. A Luna Moth with an owl skull head. Both are nocturnal creatures and can aid in seeing in the dark and therefore in the underworld. An illustration to light your way through darkness and guide your path. Both are also gifted with flight and can lend you wings to help your spirit soar above your body to travel to other realms, to the witches’ sabbat, or to shape-shift into winged creatures. (Original – black archival ink on recycled paper)

"Underworld Key" by Sarah Anne Lawless

Underworld Key

The cat, being a nocturnal creature who can see in the dark, is a walker between worlds — especially of our world and the underworld. Growing above its skull and skeletal paws is a chthonic nightshade plant symbolizing the path between worlds akin to Jack’s magical beanstalk. Hidden in the nightshade’s leaves is my original sigil representing the key to the other worlds. This talismanic illustration can be used to help open the way between our world and the world of the spirits and the dead. (Original – black archival ink on recycled paper)

For more details on my artwork in the bundle as well as the other contributor’s offerings you can find the website here: Paganbundle.com

Licensing Regulations for my Artwork in the Pagan Bundle

The Pagan Bundle’s Occult Tattoo Designs by Sarah Anne Lawless is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. These designs are not to be reproduced, derived, altered, shared, or sold. They are intended only for your own personal use (as a tattoo or artwork in your home). They are the sole creation and property of Sarah Anne Lawless.

What does this mean? It means you can print out the illustrations at home to frame, give to friends as gifts, or put in your book of shadows, and you can take them to a tattoo artist to have inked on your skin. However, you cannot alter them in any way or use them on your website, blog, products, or attempt to sell them or use them for your own promotion or profit in any way.

ou can feel her coming. She’s not subtle. The chill bite in the air hurts your lungs, makes your eyes water, and nips at your bare skin, turning it bright red. Frost and ice cover every green thing and every trace of water. Then a soft grey blanket covers the sky like a gentle reprieve followed by a strange silence and softly falling flakes of pure white snow. Then you know An Cailleach Bheara has arrived. She shakes her grey wool shawl and it snows. She strikes her staff on the ground and everything nearby freezes, frost splaying outward like cracks in ice. Neither benevolent or malevolent, she is a force of nature.

“Why is my face so dark, so dark?
So dark, oho! so dark, ohee!
Out in all weathers I wander alone
In the mire, in the cold, ah me!”

~ From the tale “Beira, Queen of Winter“

I like to appease the old one-eyed, blue-faced crone when she comes to visit as I figure it’s better to be friends with such a force than to face her icy wrath. She likes whiskey, but her arrival this year surprised me and I had none. A hot cup of honeyed rose congou tea spiked with a good dark rum left on the window sill seemed to work in a pinch. I think it helped to serve it in a tea cup from the lovely Nikiah painted with horned owls sitting in bare branches and a sly fox. The biting cold left the air but the beautiful snow remained. Not enough to cause trouble, but enough to inspire delight in the winter season and make people’s hearts sparkle in anticipation of the winter solstice and christmas.

The beautiful snow and my beautiful new kitchen certainly inspired me this December. Since I took the month off from my on-line shop to move house and unpack, I was able to cook and bake and cook some more once the broom was hung by the door and the hearth candle lit. I made wild mushroom soup with bacon and beer, pork tenderloin candied with chocolate-orange port and honey, roasted acorn squash and persimmon soup, beef and chanterelle mushroom pasties, candied pears tossed into salads, roast chicken covered in grainy mustard and bacon, and, of course, the desserts. I baked persimmon spice cake, ginger snaps, chocolate whoopie pies, shortbread, and crafted homemade chocolates of rose petal & vanilla bean, candied ginger & bee pollen, swirled into delectable dark Belgian chocolate.

My belly grew and grew, not from all the rich food, but from my little one growing inside – getting bigger and bigger with only two months left until the baby’s arrival. With morning sickness seemingly behind me I was able to meet with friends, catch up, and exchange gifts. The Poisoner and I had our first dinner guests to spoil and I had a professor and an artist visit to discuss flying ointments, psychoactive herbs as ritual incense, books, and musings on ancient history.

There were farmer’s markets and christmas markets and now we are well stocked with vinegars, syrups, jellies, jams, pickled veggies, herbal teas, and dried wild mushrooms. It warms my hearts to find so many delectable edibles made with wild local plants at the markets – salmonberry, huckleberry blackberry, elderberry, dandelion, Nootka rose, Oregon grape, sea asparagus, and more wild mushrooms than I can name! It was inspiring and many came home with me for the Poisoner and I to cook with.

December marked the conclusion of The Pagan Bundle project. Many heartfelt thanks to all those who purchased the bundle and to those who donated more than its value. Thanks to you, eight people (all independent self-employed authors, artists, and musicians – including myself), were able to able to enjoy a yuletide season free of financial worry and strain when we’d normally be pinching pennies and unable to visit loves ones. So, from our hearts to yours – Thank You!

Other wonderful things that happened this month included an extended version of my “Breaking Tradition” article and some of my artwork being published in Aeon Sophia Press‘ new Thirteenth Path Journal (now sold out) as well as an epic interview I took part in with Patrick Bertlein of the awesome and long-running Heathen Harvest Magazine – “Closer to the Garden Once More: An Interview with Sarah Anne Lawless“.

And, if you didn’t hear about it last month, I also did a podcast interview with Chris Orapello (of Infinite and the Beyond fame) on his Down at the Crossroads show. We tackled serious issues within the greater Pagan and magical communities while managing to still have fun at the same time. His podcast features interviews with lots of cool people and I highly recommend it. I had a great time and hope he’ll have me back on in the future for more mischief.

You can listen to the interview here: Episode #39 – Sarah Anne Lawless

With all the best kinds of chaos going on, all of a sudden the winter solstice was upon us and it was time for the Poisoner and I to celebrate our first Yule living together. There was freshly fallen snow on the ground and covering the beautiful yew trees lining the yard. I brought clippings of fragrant evergreens indoors to decorate our new home and to banish evil spirits and energies: blue spruce, western hemlock covered in tiny cones, noble fir, red cedar, yew, holly, ivy, and bright red firethorn berries. We brought home a little sacrificial Yule tree and, after smudging and thanking it, decorated it with beeswax candles and traditional Scandinavian straw ornaments of suns, hearts, wheat sheafs, and julboks. After the season is over I turn the tree into incense, cookies, syrup, and wood to carve so I don’t feel so bad about not having a live tree.

We hung our stockings over the fire, both of us having better memories of “opening” stockings over presents from our memories of childhood christmases. And then the morning was upon us. We brewed coffee and tea and then exchanged gifts. Stockings full of chocolate, oranges, and little goodies. A parcel sent from my parents back at the farm was full of home made preserves of apple butter, apple jelly, peach pit jelly, vinegars, oils, porcini salt, and alder wood smoked salt. There were cooking knives, artist pens and pencils, and illustrated books of Scottish fairy tales. My mother is very talented at putting together beloved gift parcels!

Under the tree were beautiful little calendars for the new year from the lovely Rima Staines and the Old Farmer’s Almanac (one of the most “pagan” calendars I’ve found – especially for the green/kitchen witch). There were gorgeous large yew wood trivets to protect my dining table from hot foods and there was a stack of hunting and foraging cookbooks to be inspired by: Pacific Feast, Whole Larder Love, and Hunt, Gather, Cook by the awesome Hank Shaw. The Poisoner gave me epic gifts of Christian Ratsch’s gigantic and heavy Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants that I’ve been coveting for a while as well as a perfect blue and white beer stein from Germany for me to enjoy my favourite craft beers out of after the baby is born (and hopefully some home made beers too as I gifted the Poisoner a book on brewing!).

We feasted on goose liver pate spread on oven-crusty bread, apple wood smoked cheddar, pickled cucumbers and turnips, and freshly baked bacon-maple cinnamon buns (oh my goodness!) I made while we surveyed our loot. We ate with our spirits and ancestors and felt our loved ones were close through their cards and gifts even though many were far away. We avoided the big community Yule rituals this year, and thus most of the illnesses going around, and didn’t feel a bit guilty about it! It was a wonderful lazy weekend of feasting and watching movies snuggled with warm blankets in bed.

I hope that whichever day you celebrate the season on, that it was full of family, friends, love, laughter, good food, good drink, and more than a small amount of mischief. A blessed Winter Solstice and a happy New Year to you all!

Now to prepare for Hogmanay…

They slept in total darkness for a month, carefully wrapped in soft cloths and furs, hidden away in a box. Quiet and patient spirits inhabiting skulls, bones, feathers, teeth, claws, horns, antlers, stones, fetiches, and a witch’s tools. Then one day light flooded in and gentle hands descended to remove them one by one, laying them out first on a blanket and then arranging the spirits on top of a antique dresser nicknamed “the beast”; a massive, solid wooden creature with hidden drawers, ancient keyholes, and intricate barley twists. Skulls grinned, feathers ruffled, and blessed water shone blue through a holey stone and a silver ring – all on a softly spotted tawny deer hide layered with the fur of a black wolf.

Old Man and Old Woman settled their ancient bones back into the remnants of creatures native to their wild domain, no doubt having missed their shrine and the once regular offerings to be found there. The Moon’s candle was restored to its place above breasts and belly carved from stone, surrounded by offerings. She eats beeswax greedily like blood offerings, leaving nothing behind. A candle lit to welcome the spirits back with sweetest incense burned and fresh water poured to sate their hunger. The spirits sigh happily, the new house sighs like a person with a once empty belly filled. Even breathing feels easier now with the altar and all its spirits in their proper place of reverence.

It feels good, so good to have a place to leave offerings again and to have a piece of the wild in my new home now that I live in the city with the forest much further away. At least here I will be able to have a garden, growing poisons, medicines, and foods once more. I still have seeds from the henbane plants I grew two years ago and we will soon transplant some of the Poisoner’s monkshood roots he’d been growing for five years at his old house.

Many people have asked me how my magical practice has changed since becoming pregnant. This question confused me at first because I didn’t understand why it should be expected to change… and it hasn’t. Sure, I can’t use my flying ointments for a couple years until I finish breastfeeding, but I can still make my tested and true recipes using practical precautions. I can’t share alcoholic libations with my spirits on the full and dark moons at the moment, but that just means more for them.

I’m still an animist and a folk magician with my simple devotions and rites. I still talk to plants and animals and honour the ancestors. The house still gets cleansed and blessed on full moons. I still dream true dreams. Unfamiliar spirits are still unwelcome in the house and I wear protections when venturing out to protect myself and my little one. The only real change has been temporarily shelving the more intense witchcraft practices as my energy levels are low. I’ve taken a break from hosting rites, bone collecting, and shape-shifting.

Life continues on as normal; cooking, cleaning, recycling, grocery shopping, visiting with friends, hosting witches and scholars in my kitchen, crafting flying ointments, packaging orders of ointments and artwork, shipping and more shipping for Black Arts Foundry… The yellow brugmansia and purple datura continue to grow and grow, happily indoors for the winter. The sun shines bringing cold and frost. The clouds come bringing warmth and rain. Green things pop up from black earth, buds slowly form, earthworms slink out of their dark homes on wet days. Imbolc arrives, harbinger of spring to come. The dead must return into the earth for soon all living things will rule once more.

The fine bone china is brought out and filled with rustic buttered bread, slices of gruyère cheese drizzled with local honey, an egg, and a fragrant sliced apple. A tiny crystal glass is filled with milk for the libation. The offerings are left on the altar overnight for my spirits and the next day are buried in the garden under the yew trees to feed the physical creatures that roam these parts (mainly raccoons, crows, and rats).

Imbolc blessings to you and yours! May the dead return to the underworld without taking the souls of your loved ones, may winter’s icy grip loosen in your region, may buds grow and flowers bloom, and may you be surrounded by love and prosperity.

Slàinte!

first encountered Aidan Wachter last summer when he sent me a very sweet email complimenting my writings and art and sharing his datura anecdotes. We continued to send emails back and forth on magic, poison plant stories, and resources… and then he opened his shop Tveir Hrafnar. I was floored. I swooned. Occult jewelery is big right now, in fact it’s gone mainstream thanks to collaborations between talented designers like Ovate with Joanna Szkiela and Sisters of the Black Moon with Bloodmilk. Animal skull pendants and occult symbols from popular designers can be seen around the necks of your favourite musicians and characters in many tv series and movies.

But Aidan isn’t following these trends — his jewelery is another esoteric creature altogether. While all the big name designers are casting their pieces in silver and bronze from moulds, Aidan is sitting at his workbench practicing old school cold cut-and-file silversmithing. The result: time-consuming, intricately cut and layered pieces of silver forming high-end magical talismans. Each one is made from scratch by hand from start to finish by a sorcerer’s hands, intended to be worn by other magicians. Each one is full of magical symbolism inspired by alchemy, sigils, chaos magic, traditional witchcraft, runic magic, and mythology.

It is a potent and powerful thing to own and wear a talisman made with magical intent by a sorcerer for a fellow sorcerer rather than a piece of jewelry crafted for the mass market. I feel lucky to possess two of Aidan’s pieces: Hekate’s Key (a large oval talisman with a skeleton key between waxing and waning crescent moons) and a Berkana Rune (a smaller square talisman for me to wear while pregnant for protection and blessing). My husband the Poisoner (who also practices cut-and-file silversmithing and was very impressed by Aidan’s work), proudly wears Saturn’s Sickle along with the inverted pentagram inside a pentagon he smithed himself. I layer Tveir Hrafnar’s pieces with my favourite raven skull and serpent pendants, usually while wearing black (of course).

Whether you’ve heard of Tveir Hrafnar or have seen Aidan around the web on social media – maybe you’ve been curious about the man and magician behind the talismans as well as how they are crafted. Well, you’re in luck as he agreed to an interview!

“I am a talismanic jeweler. I work in sterling silver, hand crafting tools for Magicians, Witches, Pagans, Heathens and occultists.

I have been aware of the living nature of the world since I was a child. In my youth I began looking into animism, magic, and related subjects in an effort to bridge the gap between how those around me described the world and my own experience of it. I accept that the nature of our reality is mystery, is magical, and is very much alive and responsive to those who dwell within it- human or otherwise. It is my aim to create tools and ornaments to support the practices of those who choose to live in direct contact with these ‘others’.

I live and work in the hardwood forests of Tennessee.”

~ Aidan Wachter

Sarah Anne Lawless: How did you get your start in magic? What paths and people inspired you?

Aidan Wachter: I had a ‘classic’ (from a folk magic or shamanic POV) start: a number of nasty illnesses, fever deliria, kind of things. A major initiatory experience happened when I was 11, but I had no idea what it was at the time. Figured that out a lot later!

But I got my start in actually studying magick via punk rock.

One night when I was 15, a friend and I found a phone number in a book of matches left for us by another group of weirdos and punks at a coffee shop (the Denny’s kind of place, not the modern version) that we hung out in. We called the number, got invited over, and I discovered the more intellectual side of the world and met a magickian and Thelemite for the first time. I also heard a record called Force The Hand Of Chance by Psychick TV. This led to contacting Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth in 1982 and getting The Grey Book from them. That was the start.

As for available authors…earliest on were Max Freedom Long, Starhawk, Paul Huson, and Crowley — though I didn’t really ‘get’ the Crowley for some time. I worked in a number of bookstores, and had a lot of access to the current crop of authors. I read The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates, and Rune Games by Osborne and Longland. Gardner and Valiente, Justine Glass. I know I read Earth Power by Scott Cunningham, and some Buckland.

In 1987 I actually became a member of the O.T.O. through a guy I met on a bus carrying a Datura plant in a pot. He gave me a whole pile of Crowley and Golden Dawn info, and most importantly, Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll. From that point on I became very driven to understand the mechanics of my spiritual/mystical experiences – as I mentioned, I was very prone to odd mystical states in my youth. I finally joined up with TOPY at around the same time, and studied with Gabriel Carrillo of Bloodrose for several months. Gabriel taught me a number of hugely useful things.

I was interested in deconstruction of the self and really trying to get a handle on the nature of my universe rather than a particular religion or system per se. It made me a bad member of any group. I eventually started calling what I did sorcery as I didn’t feel like I could claim any particular group as mine — sorcery was a largely unused term at the time.

SAL: Which came first, the silversmithing or the sorcery? What led you to combining the two crafts?

AW: Sorcery came first by a big margin!

The silver happened this way: I moved to New Orleans in 1992 knowing only one person. One morning, about two weeks after I got there, I woke up a total wreck after sleeping for a couple of hours with a burning imperative to ride to the café on the Tulane Campus for coffee. RIGHT FUCKING NOW! I’m not stupid, so I did. It was mid summer in New Orleans, and it was horribly hot and humid. I arrive a tattooed mess of sweat, no shirt on — what would be the point? I am riding across the quad and I see a man and a woman sitting at a table outside the café. They were clearly weird. They had amazing Buddhist tattoos! I knew I was there to meet them. They appeared to feel the same. I dropped the bike with them, said “I need some coffee”. I came back with a cup and sat down and introduced myself. We spent a huge part of the next 9 months together. They were Mark Defrates and Pamela Daley and they were Symbolic Jewelers. As I recall, I got Mark back into magickal practice. He had practiced at some point before but was mostly inactive, focused on Tibetan Buddhism. Several years later I learned to make jewelry in their shop. I stared making pentagrams and Thor’s hammers and such. So sorcery and silver have been combined from the start for me.

SAL: Your work is a wonderful rarity in that it caters to occultists, sorcerers, and traditional witches who most jewelers ignore in favour of the much bigger market of neopagans. Was this intentional or were you simply following your influences and passions?

AW: Mostly following my passions and influences. I am self centered in my art and would rather make what speaks to me than what I think the market would buy. It’s a ‘go for what you know’ kind of thing. Hopefully there are enough folks out there with similar aesthetics and interests to keep things rolling.

That said as a jeweler I am primarily called to power and beauty as expressions of Spirit and Will and won’t exclude any source. I believe that magick and sorcery are natural outgrowths of the human experience. I’m an animist and see these divisions of religious or spiritual practice as performing different functions within the larger organism that is the world.

SAL: Can you walk us through the making of one silver talisman by hand and how your process is different from jewelers who use casts and moulding processes?

AW: I am actually working on a few blog posts about this, but essentially and grossly simplified. It works like this: imagine you had some construction paper, scissors, a knife, and glue. You can cut out all sorts of cool shapes, right? Wild stuff even, like what Hagen Von Tulien does with his Occult Psaligraphy? It’s like cutting out paper dolls, or snowflakes. This is what I do with sheet silver: I create a design, make a template of it, and then cut out all the elements with very small drill bits and saw blades. These get cleaned up with sandpaper and files, and then soldered together. After that it is just a lot of work with the files and sandpaper to get it looking like the finished product.

Horns of the Moon - Pieces Ready for Soldering

Those genius people who can carve wax can make more sculptural forms- say you want a three dimensional ring of a toad with scales (why it has scales I am not exactly sure!) — a skilled wax carver can make you that toad, with each scale etched with great detail. They can then make a mold, which is filled with molten silver. At it’s very best, with wax casting you get something unbelievably exquisite. More often it is about economy of scale as it’s a great way to do mass production work. Once you have a mold you just order what you need from your casting service and clean it up. I’ve worked in that way, and it simply isn’t enjoyable to me. It feels like factory work. It can be less expensive and less time consuming, but I seriously enjoy building these things one at a time. I like knowing I am making this exact piece for a particular person. It matters to me that I am making what I hope will be a loved tool for another practitioner.

It also frees me up to do a lot of custom work, which is awesome.

SAL: If some lucky person was to visit your home and studio in the forest of West Tennessee, what would they see and experience? What would a day in the life of Aidan look like?

AW: First if they were like everyone else, they would try to use Google Maps and get hopelessly lost! I live way out in the boonies. Cell phones sort of work, if you stand near that tree over there and the planets and clouds are aligned just right.

What they would experience:

Trees! Hardwood trees everywhere! Hickories and Oaks of all kinds. Sweetgum, Tulip Poplar, Beech, Dogwood, Cedars. In season, the roads are edged with wildflowers: Passionflower, Honeysuckle, Plantain and Dandelion. A creek runs along the road. Lots of raptors: vultures, hawks, owls, and the occasional eagles. There are millions of smaller birds. Untold numbers of small rodents: mice, voles, moles, squirrels, kangaroo rats, possum, raccoons. Frogs, snakes, salamanders, turtles. A goodly number of cows. I never knew how many varieties of bees and wasps there were! Packs of coyotes run the night, screaming. There are a lot of deer, and turkeys. It’s fabulous. And lots of ticks and mosquitoes and chiggers and other biters, which are not!

The Silversmith’s Workbench

Hallmarking Tools

My day? Up with the Sun, meditate with the cat, make my morning offerings. Have a chat with the Spirits. Read, have coffee, and then into the shop to plan the days work. Design something! Make something! Mail something!

First meal at around 11 or noon, then (in the cold seasons) take the house dogs out to go see the chickens and the chicken dogs. In the summer this happens fist thing or it’s too damn hot! Do some work outside gardening or such if the weather and insects allow. Then back to the shop until it is time to make dinner. Post dinner is usually a movie with my wife.

It would probably be incredibly boring for many — we live a fairly reclusive, very quiet life. I am very happy if I don’t have to leave our immediate area more than once a month. I love it!

SAL: What has been the best reward so far of being a talismanic silversmith?

AW: Meeting cool practitioners from all over the world! No question on that.

SAL: Do you have a favourite piece that you’ve made?

AW: Definitely my Zos Kia pendant. Austin Osman Spare has been an immense influence on me. It happened very fast, and I was really stunned at how well it came out.

ZOS Kia Talisman in Progress

SAL: What new projects do you currently have in the works?

AW: I am working on a very limited edition piece for Aeon Sophia Press that is really gorgeous. I am also working on a collaboration that I hope goes well enough to continue for the long run with an artist I really dig. I just started an actual written blog, Hotel Vast Horizon, which I am enjoying a lot. I haven’t written much since the mid ‘90’s and it is good for me to do it.

Like what you’ve seen and read? You can find Aidan here:

And… just to be an extra-evil temptress, did you know Aidan accepts custom work?

greenmantle covers the black earth. Green of different shades and different sizes, the tiniest plant to the tallest tree. The green is full of life; flowers, berries, seeds and the animals and insects who eat them and call them home. The blue sky is filled with life, with feathered birds, winged insects, floating seeds, and invisible pollen floating in the invisible wind. The greenmantle breathes the sky in and out, the world’s largest air purifier. Beneath the greenmantle of frenzied orgiastic life lies the bones of the dead: bones of animals and humans, husks of dead insects, rotting trees from long-dead forests, and season upon season of dead plants layered into rich, fertile humus which feeds the green above.

Within this dark mass of death is the roots of the living, of trees and plants and fungi, connected like a massive nervous system forming the brain and consciousness of the land. Beneath the dead and the roots are minerals and stones. Beneath the stones are fresh waters, deep, dark and intrinsic to the health of the life far above. Snow runs down mountains, melting into streams, the streams connecting into lakes and rivers, the rivers flowing out to the sea. Everything flows together, everything is important and necessary — creating the perfect song of the land — an ecosystem in beautiful harmony. Bioregional animism is the discovery of where humans fit into this song so the harmony continues unhindered by our untrained voices and our hands that have forgotten how to play the notes.

Defining a Bioregion

A bioregion is a landmass that has continuously similar geography, flora, fauna, and human culture, usually centered around a shared watershed. Bioregions are unique in that their boundaries are not marked by national, provincial, or state borders, but instead by the land itself, the native plants and animals, and the people who live there. A bioregion is where geography, wildlife biology, ethnobotany, and anthropology meet — where science, nature, and folklore are one. My bioregion is the Pacific Northwest, sometimes referred to as Cascadia, which can encompass Alaska, British Columbia, southern Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, northern California, Nevada, and Wyoming depending on who (or which government) you are talking to.

Bioregions can also be nested within each other and so this large expanse of land can be broken down into smaller areas of which my home turf is the “megaregion” of southern British Columbia, Washington state, and northern Oregon — essentially Vancouver, BC to Portland, OR. My home province of British Columbia is massive and contains many nested bioregions within itself: the coastal islands, the lush temperate rainforest of the coast and south, the shrub-steppe of the Okanagan Desert, the mountains, the north… I would even argue that a bioregion could be one mountain, one small island, a city, a neighbourhood, and so on. I highly recommend getting to know your local area and treating it as a distinct bioregion, even if its an urban corner of city and all you think you will find is weeds and raccoons. You never know what you will find. Maybe the land your house is on used to be a wetland or a seasonal breeding ground for crows.

Bioregionalism as Philosophy & Practice

The problem with becoming aware of a bioregion is that one also becomes aware of how much humans have damaged it, sometimes irreparably. This is often why bioregionalism is considered a movement that promotes sustainability, ecological rehabilitation, the use of local resources over imported, and the growing and eating of local foods. The goal of bioregionalism is self-sufficiency and sustainability within a bioregion – of both people and nature. Bioregionalism differs from environmentalism in that it seeks to have humans and nature living together in harmony, with humans as active stewards of nature, rather than seeing humans as harmful and needing to be removed from the equation.

Instead of protesting, you’ll often find a bioregionalist removing invasive plants from a forest, cleaning up polluted rivers and streams, teaching about edible and medicinal native plants, or working in wildlife rehabilitation. They are the ones who shop at the farmer’s market rather than the supermarket, who forage and/or garden as part of their diet, and who prefer their meat from a local farmer or to hunt it themselves.

Within bioregionalism is the belief that the most important thing to learn when you move to a new bioregion, or are born into one, is to learn everything you can about it. What plants are edible? What can be used as medicine? What is in season, where and when? What animals make good eating and where are the best seasonal hunting and fishing grounds? What natural resources are there? Where’s the best drinking water and the best agricultural land? Is there anything in the culture and folklore of the locals that can help you thrive here?

Such knowledge used to be intrinsic to basic human survival, but today you will seldom find a person in a city or town who can even list the names of five native trees. How can we be self-sufficient without knowledge of the resources around us and how to use them? How can we be good stewards of the land we live upon if we know nothing about it? How can we fix what we humans broke without first knowing what the local ecosystem looked like when healthy? Through awareness, through knowledge, through hard work, and through truly caring about the land under our feet and all who live upon, under, and above it.

Where Does Animism Fit In?

“The animistic perspective is so fundamental, mundane, everyday and taken-for-granted that most animistic indigenous people do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to ‘animism’.” (source)

Animism is a term that belongs to anthropologists, not indigenous peoples and not modern spiritual practitioners. It is a word to describe the intangible, undefined, ancient fundamental beliefs of the human race that have existed since before we even had a word for and concept of “religion”. And yet… what other word do we have to use today that fits so perfectly without appropriating traditional terms from indigenous peoples who we do not share blood ties or cultural rites with?

Within the perspective of animism everything is sacred and alive, even the profane and the ordinary. Everything is holy. Every action is holy, no matter how seemingly mundane: gardening, berry-picking, fishing, spinning, weaving, cooking, house-cleaning… Every plant, animal, river, mountain, rock, moonrise and sunset is holy. Every living thing is a conscious spirit, a little god, with its own powers, knowledge, and purpose in the web of life. Every living thing is treated as one human should treat another; with respect, with awareness of existence and individual rights, and with honest communication. The land is asked for permission to hunt, travel, forage, or build structures and is propitiated to gain favour. The river is politely asked for its fish, the tree for its wood, the deer for its meat, the bush for its berries, the clover for its roots… and all are given thanks and offering in return.

”For Native peoples, living in balance with particular landscapes has been the fruit of hard work as well as a product of worldview, a matter of ethical living in worlds where non human life has moral standing and disciplined attention to ritual protocol. Still, even though certain places on landscapes have been sacred in the customary sense of being wholly distinct from the profane and its activity, many places sacred to Native peoples have been sources of material as well as spiritual sustenance. As with sacred places, so too with many sacred practices of living on landscapes. In the reckoning of Native peoples, pursuits like harvesting wild rice, spearing fish or hunting certain animals can be at once religious and economic in ways that have been difficult for Western courts to acknowledge.” (source)

These beliefs are not the sole domain of Native Americans, they are cross-cultural, they are the beliefs and practices of our ancestors, of all peoples around the world. So permeated into our being they are, that they have never really left. I flip through the thick, aged pages of the Carmina Gadelica, a collection of Scottish previously undocumented oral incantations from the late 1800s, and I see supplications to plant spirits to be spoken before harvesting, blessings to be spoken to honour the new moon, songs to be sung when treating wounds, and incantations for protecting and blessing animals. I look within the beautiful prose of the Finnish Kalevala and read of a hunter asking the spirit of the forest for permission to hunt for food. I stumble across a Lithuanian prayer from the 1930s, but know its origin is much older, its words soaked in animism and tree worship:

“That I may not fell a single tree without holy need;
that I may not step on a blooming field;
that I may always plant trees.
The gods look with grace
upon those who plant trees along roads,
in homesteads, at holy places,
at crossroads, and by houses.
If you wed, plant a tree.
If a child is born, plant a tree.
If someone dies plant a tree for their soul.
At all festivals, during important events, visit trees.
Prayers will attain holiness through trees of thanks.
So may it be!”

Putting Bioregional Animism into Practice

So far bioregional animism may seem more of a practical way of life than a spiritual one, but again we must remember the line between the sacred and the mundane is invisible. Bioregional animism is not a spiritual path, it is not a denomination or a tradition, it is the way you choose to live your life every day and the conscious choice to interact ethically with nature. It is a lifetime commitment requiring every day action and practice. You will never stop learning as there is so much knowledge to attain and to put into practical use. I see this as a beautiful thing – striving for perfection and complete knowledge all the while knowing you can never achieve it.

Go Outside

It is hard to care deeply about something without any personal knowledge of it. Walking this road can start as simply as purchasing a regional field guide and going for a lot of walks with it, photographing and recording what you find. It can be as fun as taking an identification and foraging course with knowledgeable locals who will teach you ethics and proper stewardship as well to make sure you don’t damage or destroy the natural resources you’re learning to identify and use. Go camping, go travelling, go exploring, go on adventures in your bioregion. Walk the trails, canoe the lakes, explore the beach, climb the trees…

When you’re surrounded by nature, sit still, watch and listen. See the wildlife with your own eyes; the black bear snacking on huckleberries high in the mountains or fishing for salmon along a coastal river flowing into the Pacific Ocean. See, smell, touch and taste nature; eat a juicy golden salmonberry in early spring, munch on tasty spruce tips, dig up wild onions, and forage for salty mussels along the sea shore when the tide goes out.

Research

When submersing yourself into such wildness, do not forget about the human element as well. What happened to the land when it was colonized? Was it clear cut, mined, and stripped of all resources without regard? Has the land healed or is it still raw and angry like an open wound? What peoples lived in the bioregion before it was colonized? What happened to them? Are they still there? How angry are they? How assimilated are they? How much of their traditional knowledge have they maintained? Are there any records of their animal and plant folklore, medicinal preparations, uses of natural resources, or seasonal migratory habits? What were their rites and ceremonies regarding the land and its denizens – physical and supernatural? What spirits did they believe in? How did they communicate with them and what offerings were given?

Do not attempt to follow and steal their culture as you will fail and offend. A classically trained French chef doesn’t take the wild foods of the Pacific Northwest and try to cook as the Natives once did, but instead he will use those local ingredients and the knowledge of how they were once prepared to cook in the style he was trained in, creating something new. Using this example, focus on the relevant lore that can help you be more respectful to the land spirits, the genius loci, of the bioregion where you live without trying to copy the “religion” of its indigenous people. Were lakes asked permission before one slipped a boat in the waters to cross them or fish them? Which plants or trees were considered the most powerful, were treated with the most respect and awe, and whose harvesting for food, medicine, or magic was the most highly ritualized? Which spirits were believed to be friendly and which were dangerous and to be avoided? What spirits were asked for permission before hunting or foraging? What offerings were considered perfect, acceptable, or paltry? What offerings were considered offensive and should be avoided?

Learning such things can help you to avoid pissing off powerful spirits of plants, animals, ancestors, land features, and the region itself. It is a common belief in many animistic cultures that offending a spirit can lead to being cursed with illness, bad luck, loss, haunting, and other unpleasant things with the worst usually being death. The ancient Greeks believed that if you cut down trees without permission or regard, the dryads would curse you with never-ending hunger – a curse of insatiability leading to obesity.

Get Your Hands Dirty

A wise man once told me that knowledge is attaining information, but wisdom is knowing how to apply it. Wisdom will only come with rolling up your sleeves and diving in. This is the part where you forage plants for food, medicine or magic, take them home, process and preserve them, and then turn your harvest into usable finished products. Talk to animals, plants, trees, rocks, streams, rivers, lakes, and the land as if they can hear you and will respond. If you cultivate a relationship with them over a long period of time, eventually they may react to you. Don’t expect them to speak English or even words, instead try to learn their own tongues. What does a happy and friendly tree look and act like as opposed to an unhappy hostile one? Learn how to appease unhappy spirits with proper offerings. They may still hate other people, but they will warm up to you and then you can put in a good word for others.

“O most powerful spirit
of the bush with the fragrant leaves
we are here again to seek wisdom.
Give us tranquility and guidance
to understand the mysteries of the forest,
the knowledge of our ancestors.”

– Invocation of Manuel Córdova-Rios, 1979

Look, listen, feel. What is land trying to tell you? Is it thirsty and unhappy, is it drenched and fertile? Did frost come too late in the spring and kill all the flowers resulting in a fruitless year? If you pay attention to your surroundings day to day, week to week, month to month, season to season, eventually you will flow harmoniously with the nature around you. You will simply “know” things without having to look in a book or perform a Google search. You’ll have become familiar with your bioregion, it’s changes, seasons, wildlife migrations, and weather patters and in turn, it will come to know you. Maybe it will speak to you in dreams showing you that poplar buds are ready to collect now, the first nettles are popping up from the thawing earth, or where a tree fell so you can harvest the wood and bark. Perhaps the animals will come to you in your dreams too and teach you their wisdom, sharing their power and their medicine.

In Conclusion

The philosophy and practices of bioregional animism are a step towards healing the relationship between humans and nature. We must become healers and start the hard work of relearning the song of the land under our feet so we can play our part in harmony instead of harm. We have been ignorant, careless, and disrespectful for a long time and now it is our duty to repair the damage and teach our children the error of our ways and how to undo what we have done. If we don’t take action ourselves and we don’t teach our children how to heal the land, there will be nothing left for the future generations of humans and there will be nothing “natural” left of nature. It is time for us to sing new songs and tell new stories, to write ourselves into the future as wise stewards and healers of the land. Where will you begin?

Resources:

How to Create a Genius Loci Profile
Land Guardianship

The Three who are in the earth, the Three who are in the air, the Three who are in the heavens, the Three who are in the great pouring sea. Two years ago the old fairy doctor with her long white hair used the words translated from Scots Gaelic I too use in my rites to cast a protective caim. The trance came on easily with the soothing sound of the familiar words, this world fading and turning black. She took us to an island whose earth was made of the bones of the dead and yet still covered in green growth. An island in the centre of our hearts. There on the white beach, trees behind me, sea in front of me, she asked what we were to create and build in the near future. The ground shimmered in front of me and first appeared my wood carving tools. They soon disappeared and were replaced by a small cedar wood cradle.

It alarmed me to say the least. At the time I was single, living alone, and juggling two businesses plus web design work and a busy social life – a baby was the furthest thing from my mind. I started dreaming of a little boy and once saw a friend playing with him in a rare taibhsear’s waking vision. In the dreams there was such fierce love and happiness, I would weep quiet tears when I awoke. Tears for things as simple as having never snuggled, bathed, or played with a child that is mine. Tears for never having seen them smile or laugh with joy. It was out of character for my normally sarcastic, non-weepy, busy self. I hadn’t wanted children before. My heart seemed to know something was coming that my head wasn’t aware of yet.

My good friend Nikiah is many things and one of those things is a storyteller. I love her version of the tale of the goddess Inanna’s descent into the underworld. She tells it when “birthing” drums with people and she tells it when hosting mother blessings, beating her red drum, blue eyes sparkling while silver spills from her tongue. “From the great above she set her mind toward the great below.” It is magical and perfect how the most ancient of myths and folktales can mirror our own lives.

The Poisoner and I being handfasted, wreathed in hawthorn

I had a plan for my life and my work… but then, of course, I fell in love. Love is a funny, unpredictable thing and can change you in ways you never dreamed. My heart softened, my tongue sweetened with honey, my actions were more and more selfless. The Poisoner won me over wholely with his patient but insistent love and his perfect words that always matched the trueness and sweetness of his actions. What is a woman to do but to completely let go of control and allow herself to be loved so deeply? I was stripped naked as Inanna was upon her descent to the underworld, pride demolished, but for the better.

What happens when two people are deeply in love? Passion, yes, but also other desires. We made up our minds to be wed, to be handfasted in a beautiful forest surrounded by our family and friends, to feast and dance into the night by the bonfire under the summer’s stars. We made up our minds to create new life, to start a family of our own, whispering to each other in the dark all the things we would teach our child and our hopes for who they could become. Shared intent and will are powerful between two magicians, there was no trying, the baby simply appeared — and before we’d even had time to make it to our handfasting! Everyone thought we would have a girl and even the local diviner, with her incredible accuracy rate and my ring spinning, suspended over my swelling belly from one of my hairs, was sure. I said nothing but remembered my dreams and sure enough the tiny life growing inside me turned out to be a boy.

What is it like to pull up a soul from the underworld, to pull down a star from the heavens? Uncomfortable, painful, gore-filled. Most people won’t warn you of the vomit, the blood, or the feces-laced waters – only of the pain. But it wasn’t frightening, it was what it was moment to moment. “It’s just a moment in time. Step aside and let it happen.” I remembered all the blessings my friends had given me. I let my body do all the work and shut off my brain, knowing my body was designed to do this and knew better than me, knowing countless women before me going back into the far reaches of time had given birth and trusted in their bodies.

Seven months pregnant

We happened to drive by the graveyard on the way to the hospital and I prayed to the ancestors. Again I let go of control. Again I was Inanna descending to the underworld, being stripped of all my being until there was nothing left but meat and bones. This time rebirthed by the Queen of the Underworld to become Mother.

“Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, is moaning
With the cries of a woman about to give birth.
No linen is spread over her body.
Her breasts are uncovered.
Her hair swirls about her head like leeks.”

He arrived on the day of Saturn under the influence of the full moon; the worm moon named for the warming earth teeming with worms to be eaten by robins, also named the sap moon for the return of the flow of sap to the trees in early spring. He arrived with the sun on the Ides of March, the new year of the oldest Roman calendar, once marked by the full moon. Crow sentinels circled us every hour while in the hospital, circled the car on the way home, and continue to caw outside the bedroom window every day – a guardian gift from Grandmother Crow.

Labour was so fast and intense that there was no time for anything but a completely natural birth. The midwives were shocked since he is my first. One asked me what my secret was and the only thing I could think of was surrender. The Poisoner and I’s little Yew Tree was born big, strong, and healthy. We took him home the next day. Both of Scots blood, we performed a simple rite based on one of old to protect from evil, illness, the evil eye, and the fey. I blessed a fresh portion of holy water, sprinkling it on the thresholds, the altar, and marked crosses on our three foreheads to sain us. Then the Poisoner walked sunwise around the baby and I in bed with a burning brand. He laid his iron spear across the bed. He left an offering of bread, cheese, and whiskey on the altar for our familiar spirits and another offering of the same outside to appease and keep away the unwelcome outdwellers. “Good keep in, evil keep out.” It was done.

Friends washing my nine-months-pregnant swollen feet at my mother blessing

“Sain my little child,
Shield him from death,
Hasten him to health,
As thou desirest,
Pain and sorrow
To thine injurer,
A thousand welcomes to thee,
Life and health be thine,
The age of joy be thine,
In every place,
Peace and growth to him,
Strength and worth to him,
Victory of place,
Everywhere to him“

~ Saining Lullaby from the Carmina Gadelica

Being a superstitious folk magician, who is perhaps too well-versed in old Scoto-Scandinavian superstitions, another old tradition we are enforcing is to keep myself and the baby at home and away from other people for as long as possible with only close family and the midwife allowed to visit after a good handwashing. Confinement is usually associated with traditional Chinese culture, but was practised by Celtic and Germanic peoples as well. Mother and baby would be “quarantined” at home for up to one to two months to protect them from illness and the evil eye – which they were believed to be very susceptible to with birth being its own kind of magical threshold, causing a door to be opened between worlds.

Though based in superstition, I see reason in it. A newborn is still building an immune system and the mother will take weeks to recover from giving birth, which is quite a shock to the body. It being the tail end of winter, people are still passing around viruses – the less exposure the better! I know that I’m lucky having my parents, my auntie, and my sweet man to help me while I heal and our little one grows strong. One more superstition; I won’t be posting photos of the baby publicly for privacy’s sake as well as the Scots belief that it was bad luck for people to praise a newborn.

And now to continue on this new and unexpected adventure, to surrender and to revel in the joys to come!

here are a lot of tarot decks out there to choose from. It’s hard to find an original fortune-telling deck these days – one that resonates with both your spiritual path and your aesthetic. I’ve sifted through hundreds of professionally published decks only to come up with one I love and can actually read with — The Wildwood Tarot (though, what I wouldn’t do to get my hands on the original Greenwood Tarot… except pay half my rent for it). One alternative is to go old-school and learn how to read fortunes with ordinary playing cards.

Another option is to look for independently published tarot decks which you can purchase directly from the artist. The wonderful thing about indie decks is that the artists have no restrictions put upon them by a publisher, no one interfering with their artwork or design, resulting in a deck that truly speaks the artist’s vision. An indie deck is also more likely to have been created by a card reader for other card readers, usually resulting in a more functional deck rather than a “collector’s” deck. Often crowdfunded, the downside to indie tarot decks is that they are often only available in limited quantities due to the high cost of printing, so when they sell out — they’re gone and the artist can’t afford to print more. Learn from my mistakes: if you find an indie deck you love, snap it up as soon as you have the funds!

Below is a selection of independent goodness to get a taste of what is out there from playing cards to tarot and oracle decks.

54 DEVILS: THE ART & FOLKLORE OF FORTUNE-TELLING WITH PLAYING CARDS

Author: Cory Thomas Hutcheson

Purchase: amazon.com

Okay, so it’s not a tarot deck, but if you buy this book all you’ll ever need is a pack of playing cards (you probably already have some in a junk drawer somewhere). If you had your fortune told sixty to a hundred years ago by a little old granny, it would’ve been with a regular deck of playing cards or a cup of tea rather than a tarot or oracle deck. Cory is an excellent folklorist with a passion for history and is the host of the popular New World Witchery podcast. He has the ability to make complex subjects easy to approach and will soon have you telling fortunes with your playing cards instead of playing gin rummy.

ARCANE BULLSHIT ORACLE CARDS

Artist: Evan Doherty

Website: arcanebullshit.com

Purchase: thegamecrafter.com

“Arcane Bullshit is an incredibly grave and sophisticated divination system, steeped in potent and unfathomable meaning, and intended for the solemn contemplation of serious disciples only.”

I’m sure there are those out there who would be offended by this deck, but I think it’s awesome with a side of awesome sauce. A mocking tarot parody of 49 cards that can, ironically, in fact be used for performing real readings. Look for original cards such as “Raptor Riding a Dolphin in Space” and “Look at this Fucking Hourglass”. If you have a sense of humour and you’re a fan of black and white decks (or you’re a Discordian or Pastafarian or a big fan of Cards Against Humanity), go check it out. It pleases me greatly.

CHIBI TAROT

Artist: Adam Blodgett

Website: chibitarot.com

The Chibi Tarot is a Kickstarter-funded deck that appears cute and silly on the surface but which actually has deeper and complex meanings hidden within. Chibi is a style of Japanese art known for it’s child-like cuteness. Even if you’re not aware of chibi, if you love cartoon-like artwork and are look for an adorable deck that is still an easy and approachable choice to perform tarot readings with, this one is for you. It’s still a work in progress, however, so you’ll have to wait to get your hands on the full deck. The major arcana is currently available in the shop for collectors and those who can’t wait. I have friends who seriously need this deck…

GOLDEN MOTH ILLUMINATION DECK

Artist: Aijung Kim

Website: aijungkim.com

Purchase: etsy.com

An original 75-card oracle deck with story book style illustrations full of symbolism. This one is something completely different, a new divination system made up by the artist which comes with its own meanings, a booklet, and reading spread. The artist recommends to use it for inspiration if you are an artist, musician, or writer, or to use it for divination as you would a tarot deck. This deck was also funded by Kickstarter and is limited to 300 decks. It’s a bit pricier than other decks, but because it is one-of-a-kind, I consider it worth the extra cash. I love the simple illustrations and spare choice of colours. If anyone owns this deck, I’d love to hear what reading with it is like.

PORTABLE FORTITUDE PLAYING CARDS

Artist: Corina Dross

Website: corinadross.com

Purchase: etsy.com

Portable Fortitude is not a tarot deck, but a unique set of playing cards where each card is a work of talismanic art to protect from just about anything life can throw at you. The Kings and Queens are illustrations of people that inspired the artist and are meant to be “emblematic of certain virtues”. The cards are beautifully and sparely illustrated using only the traditional playing card colours of black, white, and red.

It is a fun deck, but they are also magically practical in case you need protection from garden pests, puritans, heartbreak, disturbed sleep, narcissism, cynicism, stagnation… or the more whimsical “protection from rebirth as an insect” and “protection from feeling left out when your friends haven’t called… but you haven’t called them either”. There is a talismanic card for everyone and every situation making this a great deck to purchase to give individual cards away, or to keep the whole deck on hand as needed for any situations that come up in your life. They are a perfect size to sneak into a wallet, purse or notebook, or to place on your altar, tuck into a door frame, or under your mattress. If you need “bigger” protection, the artist also sells larger prints of the individual cards which are perfect to frame and hang on your wall for some more long-term protection. Overall, a beautiful, fun, practical, and affordable deck.

WILD UNKNOWN TAROT

Artist: Kim Krans

Website: thewildunknown.com

This one has been on my wishlist for a long time, but I always put off purchasing it due to the expensive shipping to Canada. It’s so gorgeous and high quality and I love the dark and simple nature-themed illustrations with the spare but intense use of colour… I’m just going to have to buck up and grab it next pay day. I can see myself reading with this deck and that’s what usually cinches a buy for me when it comes to a tarot deck. Have you ever worn a tarot card? Some of the cards have been turned into sexy, rustic silver pendants and rings in a collaboration with the talented Unearthen Jewelry. I covet. Okay, I covet everything over at The Wild Unknown…

WOODEN TAROT

Artist: Amy Swartz

Website: skullgarden.net

Purchase Full Deck: kickstarter.com

Purchase Major Arcana: etsy.com

The Wooden Tarot was originally a Kickstarter-funded major arcana art deck of extra-large cards. It was so successful and the artist received such good feedback and so many pleas for a full deck that she has started working on the minor arcana. I own the original major arcana deck of which only 1000 were printed (available here) and love the artwork, which is almost psychedelic — like viewing nature through eyes painted with entheogens. The deck gets its name from the artwork for each card being drawn onto birch wood. I’m excited for the minor arcana as, instead of being conventional, will be suits of plumes (birds & feathers for air), blooms (flowers for water), bones (animal bones & skulls! for earth), and stones (crystals & antlers for fire). I don’t have to see you to know you’re drooling.

“You scare me a little bit,” my friends say to me (even the Satanist and the Thelemite). So of course I was intrigued by the whispers in the ether saying “Ixaxaar scares me”. With so many books on Luciferianism, Traditional Witchcraft, Satanism, Chaos Magic, Necromancy, Goetia, and Black Magic all in one place I suppose the occult publisher and distributor can be seen as intimidating. You know deep down if it were a book store in the world of Harry Potter it would be down Knockturn Alley, not Diagon Alley. It’s like the goth-kink shop that some of you just can’t go into. You may flee from Ixaxaar and run back to the dream-catcher and fairy-bedecked metaphysical shops to comfort yourself (but hey, you read my blog so you are probably in the right place). If you’re like me, and you don’t run away, you will find Ixaxaar is a magician’s candy store of dark delights.

It was love at first sight, touch even, when Clavicula Nox IV: Lilith arrived at my door. I remember it well: the beautiful textured paper, the bold ink of the woodcuts, the dark and twisted illustrations, the delicious fonts, the colour palette of black, white and red… Yes, Clavicula Nox is sexy and it only gets sexier when you start to read; like finding out the hot woman you just met has a ph.d in biochemistry and also practices witchcraft.

I won’t tempt you much further, however, as Ixaxaar’s journal issues are only available in limited edition printings with no back issues or reprints available — meaning the Lilith issue and those before it have long sold out (unless you’d like to sell a kidney so you can afford to buy an overpriced second hand issue on ebay). The good news is that Ixaxaar has just released their fifth and final issue in time for the witch’s sabbat of Walpurgisnacht: Clavicula Nox V: Maleficarum Nigra - Magic and Mayhem.

It is available as a regular edition 60-page paperback and as a special edition hardcover of 300 copies. I am eagerly awaiting both in the mail, not just because of the quality and the content, but because Clavicula Nox V contains my piece “Intoxication, Seership, and the Poison Path” and my venefic illustrations of skulls and poisonous plants alongside the writings of Gemma Gary and Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold. Other purchasing options include two special boxed sets of poisons and artwork along with the new issue — one of which contains prints of my artwork published in the journal as well as a half ounce sample of my Sabbat Flying Ointment.

“Honouring the Covenant to the forbidden teachings of Traditional-Diabolism & Sorcery. Witchcraft issue of Clavicula Nox is available now, containing 60 pages collection of articles, art and rituals pertaining to the darker forms of witchcraft and sorcery. This is a journal of lycanthropy, witchcraft and Devil Worship, outlining aspects of the Nightside Journey for those seeking to attend the Devil’s Sabbatic Congress, who are thirsty for the hidden knowledge concerning the arts of shape-shifting, who seek to commune with spirits, attain visions, experience possession, trance and liberating madness, shamanic death and rebirth, and other facets of Nocturnal Initiation, illuminated only by the Inner Flame. Intoxicate your senses with the Poisons of the Witches’ Art that will open the veils between the worlds and by entering through the Gates of the Underworld receive the Quickening of Spirit.”

Excerpt from my article Intoxication, Seership, and the Poison Path:

“I walk the path of veneficium, of the poisoner. I do not call myself a poisoner because I seek to kill. I am a poisoner because I grow poisonous plants and brew poisonous potions. I eat, drink, inhale, and rub poisons on my skin, not to harm myself, but to absorb the powers of plants for my practices and rituals of magic. Many seemingly harmless substances can be poisons if used enough in excess. We poison ourselves every day with caffeine, cocoa, tobacco, and alcohol. I choose to poison myself in a sacred ritual manner to aid in inducing trance, imbas, visions, possession, and to enhance my abilities of prescience, dream walking, shape-shifting, and speaking with spirits.

Such poisons are known by many names: entheogen, hallucinogen, psychoactive, and intoxicant. We modern witches often hear whispers of flying ointments and mumbles of madness-inducing herbs like aconite and belladonna, but so few of us trace the lore to the pre-Christian ritual uses of these plants and their traditional preparations – let alone actually put them to use in our magic. We fear their misleading and incomplete descriptors of “poison” and “hallucinogen” more than the plants themselves. We fear death and madness, but more than that we fear letting go and losing control. For this is what such plants represent to us: surrender to another’s will, surrender to the loss of self and individuality, surrender to our primal nature, and surrender to the death of ego.

Within these poisonous plants lies a key to the mystery of shamanic death and initiation. With such complete surrender comes great knowledge and wisdom of ourselves, the world around us, and of the universe in its entirety – of the microcosm and macrocosm. Each plant entheogen is a key to an otherworldly door in the World Tree whether it be to the upperworld or underworld, within or without. The secret is to find which key, or combination thereof, opens your preferred door to the mysteries and the path of the mystic and seer. Do you seek a sensual Venusian key of intoxication and ecstasy or a chthonic Saturnine key of death and dismemberment? Often times we do not get to select which poisonous plant will by our ally and it chooses us instead; arriving in dreams, visions, from the hands of a friend, or invading our gardens uninvited.”

Purchase Clavicula Nox here: Ixaxaar.com

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The Poisoner and I need to clear out some room in our overflowing bookshelves and have selected a number of works from our collection for sale featuring rare, antiquarian, and limited edition occult books. We are only entertaining serious offers. No reserves or partial payments – the first firm order gets the book or books of their choice. Payments by Paypal and credit card only – no exceptions. All prices are in USD and do not include the cost of shipping. The price of shipping is dependent on the buyer’s country of residence and how many books are purchased in one order and can range from $20-100.

To request a book email: blackartsfoundry at gmail dot com

Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox Vol. 1-10. Samuel Weiser, 1992.

Limited Edition of 750 sets. Very good condition – each volume is like new. Hardcovers with original mylar covers. Out of print since 1998.

“The Equinox (subtitle: “The Review of Scientific Illuminism”) is a series of publications in book form that serves as the official organ of the A∴A∴, a magical order founded by Aleister Crowley. Begun in 1909, it mainly features articles about occultism and magick, while several issues also contain poetry, fiction, plays, artwork, and biographies.”

$2000 USD or best offer
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Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox Vol. 3 No.1. Samuel Weiser, 1992.

Limited Edition of 1000 copies. Very good condition. Hardcover with mylar cover, torn in one corner.

“First published in Detroit in 1919, the legendary Blue Equinox was Crowley’s first attempt to publicize the principles and aims of the magical secret society Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and its allied order the A.A. In it, Crowley laid out the esoteric, social, ethical, and philosophical ideas that he believed provided the framework for a new ethics and the liberated morality of the future. Upon publication, the book was threatened with suppression by the authorities of the day. Many of the papers in the Blue Equinox anticipated social liberties we tend to take for granted today.”

$230 USD or best offer
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Crowley, Aleister. The Winged Beetle. Teitan Press, 1992.

Very good condition, like new. Hardcover.

“The Winged Beetle is a collection of poetry by Crowley with some extremely memorable dedications whilst the ‘Glossary of Obscure Terms’ gives an alarming and rather blasphemous alternative meaning to the third stanza of the main dedication, which could probably have only been published in this encrypted form.”

$200 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. The Vision and the Voice. Israel Regardie (Sangreal Foundation), 1972.

First Edition. Good condition. Hardcover, no dust jacket – spotting along top.

“The Vision and the Voice is the source of many of the central spiritual doctrines of Thelema, especially in the visions of Babalon and her consort Chaos (the “All-Father”), as well as an account of how an individual ego might cross the Abyss, thereby assuming the title of “Master of the Temple” and taking a place in the City of the Pyramids under the Night of Pan.”

$200 USD or best offer
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Crowley, Aleister. Astrology: With a Study of Neptune and Uranus. Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Good condition. Hardcover. Minor tears to dust jacket. Spotting on outside of pages – interior is in perfect condition.

Crowley’s major astrological work, Liber DXXXVI, annotated and with an Introduction by Stephen Skinner.

$100 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. The Stratagem and Other Stories. Temple Press, 1990.

Very good condition. Dust jacket – very good condition.

“A small book of short stories. The book was originally published in 1929 and one of a series of Crowley’s works to be published by Mandrake Press after a difficult period in which Crowley found it difficult to publish due both to his lack of funds, and his notoriety.”

$80 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. De Arte Magica. Sure Fire Press, 1988.

Very good condition, chapbook.

“This is Liber CDXIV (Book 414) and was originally written by Crowley between Sep 6 and Oct 8, 1914. Although this document was released and widely disseminated by Ordo Templi Orientis under the same limited license as the other text files, it is now considered by the Order to be under seal of a particular degree.” — The Hermetic Library

$70 USD – SOLD
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Crowley, Aleister. Absinthe: The Green Goddess. Contra/Thought, 1994.

Very good condition. Chapbook, fine paper.

An article on the Green Fairy by Crowley first Published in “The International” Vol XII No. 2 in New York in 1918 with experiences, prose, history and lore on the infamous liqueur made with wormwood.

$30 USD - SOLD
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Crowley, Aleister. The Banned Lecture: Gilles de Rais, to have been delivered before the Oxford University Poetry Society by Aleister Crowley on the Evening of Monday February 3^rd, 1930. Black Moon Publishing, 1985.

Very good condition. Chapbook.

$20 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. Tarot Divination: A Description of the Cards of the Tarot with Their Attributions; Including a Method of Divination by Their Use. Samuel Weiser, 1985.

Good condition. Chapbook.

$20 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. Energized Enthusiasm: A Note on Theurgy. Samuel Weiser, 1979.

Good condition. Chapbook.

$15 USD – firm
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Crowley, Aleister. Konx om Pax: Essays in Light. Yogi Publication Society.

Very good condition. White chapbook.

“First published in 1907. The name Konx Om Pax is a phrase said to have been pronounced in the Eleusinian Mysteries to bid initiates to depart after having completed the tests for admission to the degree of epopt (seer).”

$120 USD – firm
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Frater Achad. Thirty-One Hymns to the Star Goddess Who is Not. Will Ransom, 1975.

Very good condition. Hardcover.

“This work contains thirty-one hymns to the Star Goddess who is not. The quotations attributed to the Star Goddess in this volume are from Liber Al vel Legis Sub Figura CCXX as delivered by LXXVIII unto DCLXVI. Charles Stansfeld Jones (1886-1950), aka Frater Achad, was an occultist and ceremonial magician. An early aspirant to A∴A∴ who “claimed” the grade of Magister Templi as a Neophyte. He also became an O.T.O. initiate, serving as the principal organizer for that order in British Columbia.”

$120 USD - SOLD
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Frater Achad. The Chalice of Ecstasy Being a Magical and Qabalistic Interpretation of the Drama of Parzival. Yogi Publications Society, 1976.

Very good condition. Hardcover.

“Achad’s analysis of Wagner’s Parzival as it relates to the Path of Initiation and Thelema. Charles Stansfeld Jones (1886-1950), aka Frater Achad, was an occultist and ceremonial magician. An early aspirant to A∴A∴ who “claimed” the grade of Magister Templi as a Neophyte. He also became an O.T.O. initiate, serving as the principal organizer for that order in British Columbia.”

$45 USD - SOLD
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Gamache, Henri. The Master Key to Occult Secrets: A Study of the Survival of Primitive Customs in a Modern World with Sources and Origins. Sheldon Publications, 1945.

First edition manuscript, typewritten rectos and bound with red string. Cover papers in acceptable condition, crumbling with age and sunned. Interior pages in good condition – darkening with age, one small tear on the first page.

Very rare compared to the 1984 reprint. Part of American Hoodoo history. For more information see these links:

$120 USD – SOLD
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Gardner, Gerald. High Magic’s Aid. Michael Houghton, 1949.

First edition, rare. Very good condition with dust jacket. DJ has a tear along top and is scuffed at corners but is in otherwise good condition.

“The standard work on Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism by ‘The Father of Wicca’ Gerald B. Gardner. Set in mediaeval times and told as an exciting adventure story in the manner of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘High Magic’s Aid’ takes the reader on a quest to uncover the ancient, lost and forbidden secrets of Magic and Witchcraft. The word ‘wicca’ comes from the Old English ‘wise’. Gerald Gardner’s main achievement was the revival of the rituals and magical beliefs of Ancient Britain.”

$300 USD – SOLD
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Grant, Kenneth. The Magical Revival. Samuel, Weiser, 1973.

Very good condition, missing dust jacket. Hardcover.

“The first book in Grant’s “Typhonian Trilogy,” in which he analyses the links he believes exist between various ancient traditions and the occult practices of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, Dion Fortune.”

$125 USD – firm
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Grant, Kenneth. Outer Gateways. Skoob Books Publishing, 1994.

First Edition. Very good condition. Dust jacket – very good condition.

“The first volume of the third of Grant’s ‘Typhonian Trilogies.’ In this volume Grant revists and develops the themes of his earlier works, and examines the reception of “The Book of the Law” and offers a reinterpretation of the work in the light of his own Typhonian mythos.”

$150 USD – firm
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Grant, Kenneth. Hecate’s Fountain. Skoob Books Publishing, 1992.

First edition. Very good condition. Dust jacket – very good condition.

“An original survey of magical thought and practice, including explorations of the work of Crowley, Michel Bertiaux and others, drawn from experienced gained by Grant in the course of his workings with the New Isis Lodge.”

$200 USD - SOLD
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Huson, Paul. Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks, and Covens. G.P. Putnam Son’s, 1970.

First edition hardcover with dust jacket. Popular book club edition. Very good condition. Dust jacket – very good condition, minor wear at corners.

“Mastering Witchcraft is one of the best how-to manuals for those wishing to practice traditional European Witchcraft as a craft rather than a New Age religion. Starting from first principles, Huson instructs the novice step by step in the arts of circle casting, blessing and banning, the uses of amulets and talismans, philters, divination, necromancy, waxen images, knots, fascination, conjuration, magical familiars, spells to arouse passion or lust, attain vengeance, and of course, counter-spells to exorcize and annul the malice of others.”

$110 USD – SOLD
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Knight, Richard Payne. Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus. Dilettante Society, 193[?].

Limited edition hardcover, no. 311/625. Good condition, bumped corners on cover board. Reprint of the original text on phallic worship from 1786 complete with original erotic plates.

“An Account of the remains of the worship of Priapus, lately existing at Isernia, in the kingdom of Naples; in two letters, one from Sir William Hamilton … to Sir Joseph Banks … and the other from a person residing at Isernia; to which is added, A discourse on the worship of Priapus, and its connexion with the mystic theology of the ancients.”

$130 USD – SOLD

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Mackenzie, Donald A. Teutonic Myth and Legend. Gresham Publishing, 1915.

Very good condition. Olive green hardcover, illustrated, rubbed corners. Possible first edition.

An Introduction to the Eddas and Sagas, Beowulf, The Nibelungenlied, etc. Full of lore and wonderous Heathen tales.

See the full contents here: sacred-texts.com/neu/tml/index.htm

$80 USD – firm
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Merivale, Patricia. Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times. Harvard University Press, 1969.

First edition. Very good condition. Green cloth hardcover missing dust jacket.

“In this detailed thematic study of Pan, the god of woods and shepherds (and who has the hoofs and legs of a goat), Patricia Merivale chronicles the many appearances of Pan in modern literature, giving the main emphasis to English writing, where he is in fact most often encountered. Contains 16 pages of glossy B/W illustrations of Pan.”

$80 USD – SOLD
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Platt, Charles. Card Fortune-Telling. A lucid treatise dealing with all the popular and more abstruse methods. W. Foulsham & Co., 1925.

First edition hardcover. Very good condition. Red boards have not faded. Age spotting on paper edges.

A must-have for the playing card fortune-teller. Contains meanings, card history and folklore, different reading methods, and spreads. B/W illustrations.

$50 USD - SOLD

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Porta, John Baptista. Natural Magic: A Neapolitane in Twenty Books Wherein are Set Forth All the Riches and Delights of the Natural Science. Basic Books, 1959.

Very good condition. Third printing. Exact facsimile of a 1658 printing. Hardcover of partial cloth and paper boards with heavy slip case printed with the book’s original title pages, worn edges.

“A work of popular science by Giambattista della Porta first published in Naples in 1558. Natural Magic was revised and considerably expanded throughout the author’s lifetime; its twenty books (Naples 1589) include observations upon geology, optics, medicines, poisons, cooking, metallurgy and magnetism as well as cosmetics, perfumes, gunpowder and invisible writing. Natural Magic is a fine example of pre-Baconian science. Its sources include the ancient world learning of Pliny the Elder and Theophrastus as well as numerous scientific observations made by Della Porta. Natural Magic was translated and published in English in 1658.”

$120 USD - SOLD

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Schulke, Daniel A. Ars Philtron: Concerning the Aqueous Cunning of the Potion and Its Praxis in the Green Arte Magical. Xoanon Press, 2008.

Limited edition printing of 720. Second edition. Very good condition, new red hardcover.

“Ars Philtron was the incepting grimoire of the Verdelet of the Cultus Sabbati. Its primary foci are Sabbatic-alchemical gnosis as manifest through the medium of the Potion, and the applications of the principle formulae of Furnace, Vessel, and Water. Its method and praxis concern the principal Sabbatic philtre types, their arcana, pharmacoepia, formulation, and ritual use. As a grammar of the Art Magical, the work instaurates the Philtre as an emanation of the Vinum Sabbati, the manifest elixir of witch-power.”

$300 USD – SOLD
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Semple, Gavin W. A Poisoned Chalice: The Death of Robert Cochrane. Reineke Verlag, 2004.

Limited edition chapbook, no. 41/100. Signed by author. Very good condition, slight bend in cover but no crease.

An essay containing the details of Robert Cochrane’s (aka Roy Bowers) death. Collectible by those interested in Robert Cochrane and his teachings. Contains a photo of his grave site.

$80 USD – SOLD
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Valiente, Doreen. Where Witchcraft Lives. Aquarian Press, 1962.

First edition hardcover. Very good condition – some age spotting on edges. Dust jacket intact with protective mylar cover – very good condition minus mild humidity damage (bleeding of colour).

“Doreen Valiente was one of the most respected English witches to have influenced the modern day Pagan movement. In this book she examines Witchcraft in Sussex, the role of the Horned God, hares and the Moon, folk-rites and the powers of Witchcraft. She is hereby laying the foundations of the modern day Witchcraft movement. As Gerald Gardner is now commonly thought of as the ‘Father’ of contemporary Witchcraft, so Doreen is known affectionately as the ‘Mother of Modern Witchcraft’.”

$1000 or best offer

Where Witchcraft Lives by Doreen Valiente

Summer has come and with it the warmth of the sun and the beauty of flowers humming with bees. I have found myself wandering outside more and more through the yard, through gardens and through alleys, smelling flowers, picking flowers, and eating flowers. I found huge escaped comfrey plants growing in the alley behind the house, purple flowers full of soft fuzzy bumble bees – its thick juicy leaves just asking to be turned into a healing balm.

There are many hawthorns in this old city. Some perhaps once hedges of farmers’ fields since built over with houses from the 1920s-40s. Some cultivars were obviously planted for show like this gorgeous Crataegus laevigata ‘Plena‘ with it’s perfect tiny rose-like flowers. I’m rather in love with it. Just imagine those tiny perfect flowers in a salad or as a dessert garnish or decorating an altar for some love or healing work. I brought some tiny sprigs home to lift my own spirits as hawthorn is happiness.

I stop to sniff every rose to find which are the most fragrant. The wild ones are always the best for taste and smell and make an ambrosial mead with fireweed honey. I inhale deeply and ask which ones want to go home with me. The palest pink ones oblige and I snip off their heads, storing them sealed in the fridge until I’m ready to infuse them into herbal teas of fresh mint and lemon balm, or fir tips, or roasted dandelion root with milk and honey. Others I leave long-stemmed and place into little bottles to leave on windowsills as offerings to the house spirit. Roses for love and a peaceful home.

Summer flowers are brought inside, painted the colours of sarees and gypsy vardos, and fill tea pots and canning jars. Nighshade, poppies, red clover, comfrey, daisies, sage flowers, and foxgloves. Some from the yard, some escaped from gardens into the neglected back alleys of the old neighbourhood. I know that by taking them home I am consuming them, making their already short lives even shorter, but I try my best to ask sweetly for their blessings before I snip off their heads and bring them home. I try my best to let them know why and what will be done with their beautiful sacrifice – their souls burned up like incense to be eaten by my own beloved spirits – eaters of flowers.

There are potted orchids at the kitchen window and orchids for Pan, guardian of our mead and wine (who surely gets his own share in reward). Live plants bring the offering of clean air and beauty to one’s home, spirits, and gods. The orchids are joined by a fuschia from my mother and a tough purple datura from a fellow sorcerer who grows and works with poisons.

The Poisoner is a sweet man who often brings me flowers for no reason other than I love them and he knows I will leave them as offerings on the altar for Old Man and Old Woman. I do so, inspired by the Chinese and Thai ancestor altars I have seen here. I love that many always have fresh flowers on them along with food and drink. I do my best to always have offerings of blessed water and fresh flowers on my altar. Their beauty, fragrance, and taste a welcome treat for many spirits – insects, animals, ancestors…

If I’m able to, I most love to offer up seasonal flowers that are native to the forests and mountains here in the Pacific Northwest, or are at least naturalized and prolific. This year it is a matter of convincing the baby it is a good idea to go flower picking.

To continue the flower theme in two dimensions… With any pocket money I have leftover, I’ve been trying my best to support other independent artists as I know how hard it can be to live off of one’s art. My treat for May was the Nømad Tarot of black and white illustrations by Jennifer Dranttel. The court cards are simply of butterflies/moths, crystals & stones, sea shells, and feathers making this deck more for collectors or experienced readers, but the art is lovely. I’m rather enamoured with it and plan to start performing readings with it.

My treat to myself for June was artwork for my new home. I’ve admired the art of the wonderful Rima Staines for many years and was able to purchase her sweet little calendar for Yule, but now that she’s reopened her shop I was able to snap up large prints of three of my favourite paintings: “The Weed Wife” for the kitchen, “Ajna in the Horse Chestnut for the baby’s room”, and her newest “Maiden Mother Crone” for my bedroom.

May your summer be filled with the beauty of flowers, whether admiring them in nature or gardens, in sunny back alleys, inside tucked into tea pots and old bottles, or painted onto wood or paper.

The local Scandinavian Midsummer Festival is in its 19th year. We attempted to go last year, but it didn’t work out and so were determined to make it this summer solstice. We woke up early with the baby boy and off we went to the Scandinavian Cultural Centre to make it in time for the brunch. We ate, we roamed around through the tents dedicated to each country, we browsed the artisans’ wares, we ate some more, we drank a goodly amount of beer, we watched the young couples warm up for the wife-carrying contest, we listened to music and we watched lovely ladies walk by with handmade flower crowns. I wished to make a flower crown of my own, but the table was filled with ravenous flower-hungry women and I did not wish for an elbow in the eye.

The food was nothing to write home about, there were only pale ales on tap, there were only a few artisans of note, and there was a lot of non-Scandinavian-ness going on, but overall we had a wonderful midsummer’s day. We even ran into my old wonderful Finnish landlord who I miss. Old because he’s no longer our landlord and also beacause he’s a grandpa. We tired out the baby so much that he fell asleep in my arms at the beer garden after many smiles and giggles and then we all fell asleep together on the bed as soon as we came home. The sun and fresh air from the beautiful poplar and birch forest must’ve gotten to us all!

The highlight of the festival for the Poisoner and I was the Viking Village put on mainly by members of the local An Tir SCA. The people involved lived, ate, worked, and slept in the village for the whole weekend — pretending they were living centuries ago. There were merchants and tradesmen, warriors and weavers, children and babies. The only thing missing was the spiritual aspect, but that may have been to avoid offending the large Christian population in attendance. There was, however, a massive and intricate “maypole” in the main area of the festival wound completely with live ivy and danced around by children at the end of the day.

Toy axes, a set of wooden blocks for a game of kubb, felted children’s toys, embroidery, a lovely wooden pail, and freshly harvested herbs.

The carved post of a merchant’s handmade tent.

A women sits in the centre of the village preparing a stew over an open fire with an assortment of beautiful wooden and cast iron cookware.

Weavers ply their trade, one with an upright loom and stone weights weaving fabric and another crafting decorative trim with card weaving.

The weavers laid out a table of naturally dyed wools with the botanicals used to dye them to show how we once coloured our cloth using only things found in nature.

Weapon porn. Need I say more? There were beautifully painted shields throughout the site – these were simple but lovely.

There were two metalsmiths working their trade; one stamping the decorative tip to a knife sheath and the other carefully weaving a necklace chain with the finest wire. He had two simple but clever wooden vices that I would love to recreate for my own use.

Before we headed home I wandered into one of the green spaces to soak up the cooling forest on the warm midsummer day. There was a gentle breeze through the birch and black cottonwood trees, there were bright red elderberries everywhere, and it was deliciously quiet away from all the crowds of people. I thanked the forest for its peace and beauty and then we three headed home.

The man and I agreed we’d go again next year as the Viking Village and the beer alone were worth it.

Skål!

If you have not yet done so, please go and read Peter Grey’s life-altering essay “Rewilding Witchcraft” before continuing with my piece. The co-owner of Scarlet Imprint has much to say that desperately needs to be heard by the magical community. I will sit here and wait and sip my tea while you do so. Then come back and I’ll pour a mug for you and we’ll talk.

e are doomed. The earth and nature are not doomed. We are doomed, we humans. If we want to be honest with ourselves about the future of life on earth then we must be on the side of nature and not on the side of humanity. We have made the earth uninhabitable for ourselves, but nature will survive and notice our decline and demise as much as a the ocean notices one boat sinking into its depths. Green vines will swallow our cities of concrete and metal, trees will uproot parking lots and highways, animals will nest in our abandoned houses, the roofs of our temples will collapse letting in sunlight and starlight… and nature will not care, nature will not laugh, nature will not cry.

Our witchcraft, nay, our very being must become more wild, more intuitive, and more accepting of nature’s amorality and our inevitable demise if we are to make any difference at all. If we are to preserve what we’ve left behind of the earth in our destructive wake, and if we are to survive in any number as a species, we must rewild ourselves and learn how to live outside of civilization. We must lose our faiths, our religions, our meaningless attachment to nitpicketity details only we as individuals and not a whole care about. We who are importers of foreign magics and alien gods. We must become a different kind of witch. Something that needs no definitions, no boundaries, and no expectations. Something more primal and raw than our current incarnation. Something small, something just outside your door…

Local food, local beer, local products… the locavore movement invades the Pacific Northwest like an organic cotton-wearing hippie invades a farmer’s market with the best of intentions, but whose naïveté fails to see that paying more for something local will make absolutely no difference on the environment or the decline of our civilization (this is coming from someone who shops at farmer’s markets and buys local). What we need instead is local knowledge, local medicine, and local witchcraft. What do your local spirits care about you and your family’s survival? You who have never spoken to them or left them an offering? You who doesn’t know their names, powers, or dwelling places. They have no vested interest in you. They will dwell in the trees growing over our mass grave one day and not weep for us… after all, wasn’t it our ancestors who clear cut the forests that were their homes when we came to this land? Wasn’t it our ancestors who polluted their rivers and oceans and fished all their food until it couldn’t be renewed? Why would these spirits teach us their magic and medicine? One would have to put in a lot of hard work to simply get their attention, and years of it for them to start trusting and helping one local spirit worker, let alone all of us.

What did the ancient magicians, shamans, sorcerers, and witches do to gain the favour of the spirits? The literally went wild. Off they would go into the uncivilized world of nature without any comforts, without any companions. They would learn to hunt and forage for food, how to clothe themselves only with what nature provided, how to make tools, how to follow the migrations of animals, and learn how to predict the weather and the seasons. So wild they would become that speech, manners, and morals would be forgotten. When they would return home five to ten years later, they would be unrecognizable: feral, dangerous, mad. Accounts in Ireland even speak rumours of cannibalism. It would take a long time to bring them back to civilization and they were never fully comfortable in it again, living on the outskirts of town. But their people believed their madness was worth it for the knowledge they brought back; for these wild men, these woodwoses, were now encyclopedias and intermediaries of the genius loci – the local spirits of nature. And they were invaluable to the people’s survival.

What is the ancient purpose of a witch or shaman? To be an intermediary between the spirits and humanity. To be translator, negotiator, salve, and warrior if need be. In rewilding witchcraft, this is what we must learn, this is what we must become. We must be able to commune with the spirits of nature; of animals, insects, plants, waters, forests, mountains, plains, deserts, elemental forces, and also with the dead. In order to commune with the spirits we must become them, we must live with them, we must speak to them even if they do not answer back for years whether due to our untrained ears or their chosen silence. Wherever you live, you must allow yourself to be absorbed into the very land itself, immersed in the genius loci until their secrets and wisdom pour into you. We must become village witches, regional witches, shamans who speak for the spirits where we live.

I live in the Pacific Northwest. I live between ocean and mountain. My corner of the world is full of spirits both benevolent and malevolent, great and small, named and unnamed. Some have no equal anywhere else in the world, some uncannily resemble foreign spirits or spirits found in too many cultures to count. In Russia, Old Woman is Baba Yaga. In the highlands and islands of Scotland she is the Cailleach Bheur. In the Pacific Northwest she is Asin, Monster-Woman-of-the-Woods, or Basket Woman. They are all very different, and yet they are the same. They protect the forest, they are wild, they are the land, and though they eat people (especially children) they are also initiators of spirit workers who are brave or foolish enough to seek them out. The world of spirits is often a paradox and linear thinking is of little use. I have said it many times. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you must go into the wild unknown over and over and over if you want to learn how to speak to spirits and learn their magics. The same goes if you live elsewhere.

Let us journey into the wild…

Hear the rain softly falling on the leaves and the louder drops rolling down the branches to drip onto the ground. Smell the air as each drop falls releasing the musky, earthy scent of centuries upon centuries of a humus composed of decaying cedar trees and plant leaves. See the thick mosses carpeting the forest floor and the bark of wizened old hazel and maple trees. See the fungi covering dead stumps, climbing up vast tree trunks and spreading its invisible mycelium network beneath their roots. See their colours ranging from purple and pink to brightest yellow and orange, to unassuming browns and the nefarious red-capped toadstools with white spots.

Tilt your head back and look up into the canopy of trees: Cedar, Fir, Alder, Poplar, and Big Leaf Maples so tall you cannot see where their branches end. They must touch the roof of the sky itself. See in their branches the dark shapes of crows cawing their messages and prophecies in a cacophonous symphony. Be silent and you may hear the croak of a raven,the cry of an eagle, the hoot of an owl, the rustling of a black bear through the deep woods. Be still and you may see a wild hare, a white-tailed deer, or a serpent slithering back to its hole in the earth.

Climb a hill or a tree and see the vast mountain ranges around you with their summer snow-dusted peaks and you will know the world when it was young. Look below the saw-toothed mountains and you will see the raging rivers, the snaking fingers of streams and waterfalls running down mountain sides, and the outlines of inlets – waters reaching inland from the great pouring sea. Follow the rivers and inlets back to the source where all water flows: the Pacific Ocean. Here its vastness is dotted with lush green islands of solitary hills and mountains hidden by mists and fog. They are an otherworld all of their own.

What do you see in the waters between the chains of these wild hilly islands? A massive grey whale and closer still, orcas, their skin shining black and white with proud upright fins cutting through the salt water. Deeper still the ocean conceals its mysteries: giant squid that would crush your bones as easily as the frame of a wooden boat, neon jellyfish full of stings and fire, and colourful red and green salmon fattening in the sea before their homeward journeys back to the rivers of their births. You travel back to the sea shore and find it covered with barnacles, mussels, clams, crawling crabs, and the odd stranded purple starfish. On the rocks nearby you see a family of black-eyed seals sunbathing on a rock, furry body upon furry body, happy and fat after a feast of fish.

You stand on the shore and remember you drank from the mountain springs, you ate the forbidden berries bursting with tart juices, you sucked the flavour out of roots, you filled your mouth with catkins and bitter green leaves, and you stuffed the flesh of fish, hare, and bird with mushrooms and tender fir tips and roasted them over a fire on lonely hungry nights under the stars. You ate and ate until your skin turned green with leaves and moss, your blood turned to sap, flowers spilled out of your mouth, roots sprouted from the soles of your feet, fur grew down your back and feathers from your finger tips. You are what you eat and you ate the wild — shape-shifted into it.

You look up and see you are in a sacred places where land, sea, and vast sky are all present. You have unknowingly stepped into the spirit world and into the ancient past. You touch your head and waist and find them wreathed in delicately needled hemlock branches. You touch your face and find it painted. You touch your shoulders and find them cloaked in familiar feathers. You touch your neck and find it draped in necklaces of teeth, claws, bones, and magical roots of native species.

Dig a small hole in the wet sand with your hands, feel its coolness and leave an offering; small stones and spring water from the mountains, wild flowers from a meadow, a sprig of cedar, a bundle of feathers, a perfect clam shell, and berries you foraged along your journey. You stand over your offering and drum and sing, calling the spirits and the act being an offering in and of itself. When you are spent you thank the spirits for all they have revealed to you; how the land is connected and interdependent, how powerful and important each feature, element, and creature is. Then you start the long journey home knowing you are wild again.

WANT MORE?

Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey

Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram

Journey into Bioregional Herbalism by Kiva Rose

The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram

Unlearn, Rewild by Miles Olson

Wild Earth, Wild Soul by Bill Pfeiffer

We packed a lunch, we packed the baby’s things, and we packed the baby into his stroller on a hot summer’s day. Off we went to show our little man his first forest. Until now we had only been able to take him to the city park and, though beautiful and full of trees, it is no wild wood. I told him he would love it. I knew he would from how he can endlessly gaze at the leaves of one tree without getting bored. It was so hot and humid, but the shady vibrant green forest was cool and breezy. A couple minutes down the dirt path and the baby grinned. The further we went and the taller the trees and denser the greenmantle became, the bigger and bigger his toothless grin became until he was laughing too.

We three stopped to picnic off the path under a western hemlock tree next to a the massive hollowed out stump of an ancient cedar tree with a fairy tunnel just big enough for the baby to crawl through. I twirled him around under the canopy of evergreen trees and he giggled with glee. I brought him down close to the earth and stood him up with his little feet in the soft moss. He wiggled his toes happily.

The Poisoner and I don’t have plans to teach him religion, but we want to teach him a love and respect for nature as well as pass on our knowledge of the local wilds to him. It is through our children that our attitude towards nature will change, but only if we teach them to love it. Below is a photo my mother sent me with a handwritten letter of me trying to catch up with my dad in the forests of Northern Vancouver Island. My parents tried to bring my sister and I into wild nature as much as they could. We went to provincial parks every weekend and during the week if possible and every summer we went camping in every corner of British Columbia. It is thanks to my parents that I love my province as much as I do and I also owe them my deep love of nature and my animistic beliefs.
There were red huckleberry bushes everywhere decorated with early, bright vermillion berries. They are my favourite wild berry – I prefer them to the black and blue huckleberries that people rave about. I picked handful after handful, filling my mouth with their tart juice tasting of sour blueberries and lemon. The Poisoner patiently waited for me along the path as I picked them, pointing out the best bushes to me and eating the odd handful himself.
We plan to return in a week with containers to pick some to take home. Why not turn them into a liqueur, a beer, a mead? There are a few craft breweries in the Pacific Northwest who make huckleberry beer and it is a tasty summer treat. I’ve made mead with huckleberry and devil’s club before and it was divine! A wild mead I used for ritual offerings.

Huckleberries are full of magic and medicine. They are an excellent plant for dream walkers and dream diviners. Supposedly if you ask a question and place huckleberry wood or leaves under your mattress or pillow – you will dream your answer. To make a wish come true, burn the leaves in your room before you go to bed. In rootwork, the leaves are carried for luck and they are also put into sachets or burned to break curses. They would also work in a curse-breaking bath or as a curse-breaking tea. In local mythology huckleberries belong to Basket Woman, or Asin, an ogress who eats people and some Native tribes used to avoid them believing they would get lost in the woods and eaten by her. In folk medicine the leaves are believed to even out blood sugar levels and are used by those with hypoglycemia and diabetes.
We saw beautiful tiger swallowtail butterflies with their yellow wings circle in the sunlight of forest clearings. We saw massive black and white dragonflies and the tiniest metallic blue dragonflies. We saw the tiniest, fuzziest baby ducklings huddled together in the sunlight. We saw wild baby geese the size of fat chickens follow their parents into the muddy waters in the forest to feast on greens growing next to cattails and calamus. We saw many a crow peering down at us from the branches of fir trees. We saw towering douglas fir trees dripping with fragrant resin, shining brightly in the sunlight.
Foamflower growing on a stump with a fairy knot A scrawny little female chickadee landed on my hand and was none to pleased to see it empty of seeds. This tells me people who visit this forest have been a little too naughty in their feeding of the wildlife. We had a squirrel army surround us when we sat on a bench for a snack before heading home. It was more than a bit creepy. Apparently we’d sat at a bench where someone regularly fed them peanuts judging from all the empty shells. We didn’t share our food and the Poisoner said he’d have nightmares that night of squirrels coming after him.

Don’t feed the wildlife folks and don’t teach your kids to do it — no matter how cute it is to see them take it from your hands. Most of the food people try to give wildlife isn’t in their normal diet and usually isn’t good for them and can often be harmful. You’re taming them and teaching them to depend on people instead of their own foraging skills. Plus creepy squirrel army is creepy.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy your own forest wanderings soon. May the coolness of the green shade soothe your soul on the hot summer days to come. May the season be full of magic and enough boldness to go on the adventures that call you!

I receive a lot of questions about my flying ointments via email and social media with many of them being on the same topics so I have compiled ten of the most frequently asked questions about my ointments and their use. If you have any additional questions you don’t see listed please feel free to ask them in the comments and I will do my very best to answer. I’d also love to hear any feedback about those who have used my flying ointments for medicine and magic as it helps me as well as those who would like to give them a try.

Which one is best for beginners? I always recommend either the Mandrake or Witches’ flying ointments to those just starting out as they are a gentler and more pleasant experience.
Which one is the strongest/best and will you make a stronger ointment? No ointment recipe is stronger or better than the other, they are simply different as they use different herbs with different effects on different people. One may work great for you, but have no effect on another person. My patrons’ hands-down favourite ointment of choice, however, is the Sabbat Flying Ointment. If the ointments made with the solanaceae don’t work well for you, Witches’ Flying Ointment made with plants in the artemisia family may be a better choice. My ointments are made at the strength they are so they are safe for use by the general public. If you are looking for something stronger you may want to try something else instead such as smokable herbs or herb-infused liqueurs – wormwood is a good herb to start with.
Which one is best for divination/spirit communion? Henbane and Witches’ flying ointments are the best suited for the divinatory arts, mediumship, and necromancy. Mandrake can also be used for this purpose, especially when communing with deities or the dead, and also acts as magical protection from unwanted possession.
Which one is best for sex magic? Mandrake as an ancient aphrodisiac is the best for naughty acts as it won’t have any adverse effects with you mucous membranes like some of the other herbs might (henbane can cause skin irritation and abrasion). I highly recommend the Mandrake Flying Ointment for sensual body massage as well. Not only is it aphrodisiac, but it will also soothe any sore muscles and increase your energy levels should you have a partner who keeps you up all night. Friends who have used it (especially at Beltane) say the tin should come with a label that says “warning: may lead to orgies when combined with alcohol”.
How much should I use? I recommend that everyone start with a pea sized amount first to test their reaction to the ointment then to use more after. The standard dose for my ointment recipes are 1-2 tsps (5-10 ml) for women and smaller persons and 2-3 tsps (10-15 ml) for men or larger persons.
How often can I use one? They are safe to use multiple times a month, but I wouldn’t recommend daily use unless you are using them medicinally rather than magically.
Can I combine ointments? Yes, but I would recommend only using ones together that are made with a single herb like the Belladonna, Datura, Henbane, and Mandrake ointments. Use half the dose of each to make up a standard dose or a third if you are combining three.
How will it affect me? They effect everyone a little differently, but the main effects are intoxication, giddiness, and light-headedness. My flying ointments can be aphrodisiac, euphoric, sedative, analgesic, and psychoactive. Temporary side effects may include blurry vision, dry mouth, dizziness, and loss of time.
Are they dangerous? The only danger of external use comes from allergies and pre-existing medical conditions. If you are allergic to morphine do not apply ointments containing belladonna. Do not use them if you have a heart condition, serious kidney issues, or are on prescription medications such as antidepressants. Overall, they are about as dangerous as alcohol so use the same precautions.
What is the shelf life? My ointments have a minimum shelf life of 2 years, but when stored properly in a cool, dark and dry place they can last up to 5 years. Ointments can be placed in the fridge or freezer to extend their shelf life, but the ointment may liquify when brought back to room tempterature – this is completely normal.

Purchase Flying Ointments: Black Arts Foundry

“A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercely blood would form in the corners of her eyes. She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake.”

~ Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

WHAT THE HEART WANTS

The first spell many of us perform is a love spell when we are young and magic is shiny, new, exciting and limitless. Some of our spells worked and we now have horror stories or cautionary tales to tell. Some of ours didn’t and years later we are relieved about it. The yearning for love magic doesn’t disappear with youth, however. It isn’t the teenage heart that desires another to fall madly in love with it, it is every heart.

The old blind seer who can no longer see the tarot cards or read the tea leaves, her face sagging with a thousand wrinkles, knows it was love keeping her pockets and larder filled through the years.

The aging conjure man held up by his gnarled wood cane has no illusions that love kept his hands busy making mojos and his wallet full of bills.

“Does she love me too?”

“How can I make her love me?”

“Why doesn’t anyone love me?”

“Does he cheat on me?”

“How can I make him faithful?”

“How can I get him to leave his wife for me?”

“She broke my heart. How can I make her hurt as much as me?”

“I can’t stop thinking and dreaming of him. Can you make it stop?”

“Make my lover come back to me. Please. Please”

Have no illusions, these are not questions or work for a white witch. Love spells are black magic. Love spells to manipulate the body, heart, and soul. Love spells to dominate, to bind, to cause destruction and madness and pain.

Love spells are not about love, they are about the lustful eye and the selfish heart. Be honest with yourself about it and then move on to the work at hand.

LOVE ME / WANT ME

The most honest loves spells are ones of intoxication. Think of me, dream of me, want of me, lust for me.

Braid their hair into yours, wrap them in red cloth, and keep it close to your skin or under your pillow. Invite them into your dreams at night or let your soul take flight to visit within their dreams. Touch your intended lover as often as you can, sweetly, sensually, gently, unintrusively. Think of them when you touch yourself and cry out their name when you reach the ecstasy of climax. Get them to drink from the same cup or share food with you as much as possible. Secretly swipe your sexual fluids onto their skin or slip it into their food or drink. Taste their sweat, taste their blood.

No, it is not clean or safe or pretty or moral. Love makes you blind, makes you do anything to win it. Love spells aren’t supposed to be beautiful or ethical. Love spells are dirty and dark. You may feel ashamed or you may feel a thrilling hot rush at its illicitness making your eyes dance and sparkle.

If you want it to work you must be willing to go all the way and accept the consequences. How badly do you want their heart? How badly do you want their body? Do you care that it may only be temporary? Will you do it anyway if it only lasts for a month, a year? Love spells can’t last forever if the desire is not mutual, but especially not spells of lust. Once it wears off it will be replaced with disgust. But if the spark is already there, such magic can only intensify it.

Just be careful you don’t overdo it as love and lust spells notoriously lead to dangerous obsession when they spin out of control and, on rare occasions, murderous jealousy.

DON’T LEAVE ME / DON’T CHEAT ON ME

Find an object symbolic of your partner’s genitals and an object for your own: an immature magnolia seed pod, a baculum, or a root for a penis and a flower, pelvic bone, or fruit pit for a vagina. Another option is to sew two small poppets together facing each other. Bind them together with red, pink, or white string or your hair if it is long enough. Wrap it tight then wrap it up in cloth or paper. Dress it with both of your sexual fluids. Dress it once a month if things are rocky. Dress it once a year if things are good. Burn it to break the binding. Put it in the freezer temporarily if you are just pissed off.

LEAVE HIM/HER

Have competition in a wife, husband, girlfriend of boyfriend? Write your target’s name on one end of a branch. Write their partner’s names on the other. Hawthorn with its Mars ruler and heart association works well, but any stick will do. Break it in two, forcefully and with anger. State your intent aloud and really mean it – no regrets. Bury the end with your target’s name in your own yard (or a flower pot in your apartment and water it) and bury their partner’s name on the outskirts of town or in another town if possible. As the sticks rot, so will their relationship.

Take two small poppets, sewn together. Name one after your target and one after their partner. Snip them apart while stating your intent. Burn the partner. Release the ashes into the flowing water of a river or stream. Sew your target’s poppet to a new one named for yourself. Bind them with your hair and string. State your intent. Keep it under your mattress.

Heard a car crash near your house? Go out to the spot after the cars have been towed away but before they clean it up well. Gather up any broken glass. Put it in a small jar of iron water (put iron nails in a jar of water in the fridge until they rust) and then hide the jar on the couple’s property (especially under the front doors or stairs) to cause them to break up.

The caveat? You must not care what this spell leads to – what has to happen for their partner to leave – whether it is simply a break up, an illness, or their death. You don’t get to choose even if you try to.

HEARTBREAK

They left you. They hurt you. You can concentrate on nothing but the pain. Your world is taken over by your breaking, selfish, angry heart. You want them to hurt as much as you. Maybe they are, but you don’t know and you don’t trust maybes. Every night before you go to bed you take a photo of them or a poppet you made for them, stuffed with their personal concerns, and you hold it over a lighter or a candle flame. Not burning it up, just singeing it each time. “Think of me, feel my pain. Feel guilt, feel heartbreak. Hurt.”

Maybe you want them to hurt so they will come back to you. This is one of the hardest love spells; to get a lover to return who doesn’t want to. You can try, but keep in mind you’ll likely fail or if you succeed the results won’t be as you desired and the relationship may end up dark and twisted as a result of your magic.

Take something broken, name the pieces after you and your ex lover, glue or sew them back together. Bind it with string, seal it with dripping wax, and put it under your bed. Send them dreams of you at night. Make a wax poppet for them and hold it near a candle flame or lighter, not to destroy it but just to melt it a little. Stick it with a pin in the brain or the groin. Do it each night for one or two weeks. State your intent for them to feel restless, to burn with guilt or desire without relief until they come back to you.

Make a honey jar for them, placing their photo and personal concerns into its sticky sweetness. Seal it. Bind it with red thread. Light a red, pink, or white candle on top of it, dress it with oil or rosewater and state your intent. “Think sweetly and fondly of me. Speak sweetly of me. Soften at my name, at my memory.” Leave it on your altar.

BREAK IT UP

Have an urgent need to undo what you have done? Burn all the poppets or other bindings you made and release the ashes into a flowing river or stream. Break what you have built together, burn it all. Burn what they have made you or gave you. All of it, no exceptions. Leave it all behind. Leave no trace of them in your belongings.

Write your names on the branch this time and break it to destroy your own romance, burying the pieces as far apart as you can.

Invisible threads from everyone we interact with, whether friend or romantic partner, link us together. When you perform love magic and binding magic you strengthen this thread and stain it red. Name a thread after your lover, cut it and burn it. Tell your spirits to carry the thread back to them as you no longer desire for that connection to exist between you. Burn a purification incense afterwards, particularly one good for banishing evil.

THE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE

Not all love spells are black magic. You must feel relieved at hearing me say that… but love spells that aren’t dark aren’t truly love spells — they are prayers, petitions, and healing spells. Your pray for good love to find you, a good partner you deserve. You light a pink or white candle carved with your wishes to do so. You petition deities of love with sweet offerings so that they favour you and send you healthy love and good sex or maybe you present them with a list of attributes for your perfect/preferred lover (I’ve done this and highly recommend it if you’re getting frustrated with a string of bad romances).

You and your partner broke up and you take cleansing ritual baths with rose petals and rosewater for six days in a row, submerging yourself in the fragrant water six times for each bath. Maybe you take a tincture, elixir, or tea of rose petals, heartsease, bleeding heart root, or hawthorn berry too to help ease the pain in your heart.

You place gentle herbs under your mattress or pillow so you don’t think of them or dream of them at night. So you feel peace.

You promise yourself you will make sure the next one puts just as much effort into loving you as you do into loving them.

question I am frequently asked is “can you recommend a coven for me to join/like-minded people for me to meet/a nearby pagan festival? I live in Italy/Texas/Québec.” It seems like a simple question, but it’s actually quite impossible to answer even if you live in the same city as me. I can’t give you a list of covens in your local area or a list of local witches you’d hit it off with as it’s simply beyond me (beyond anyone really), but I can help you with where to start looking on your own. You are going to have to do some research, hit the pavement, and put in the work yourself, maybe years of it, but if this is what you want it will be well worth the persistence and effort.

Finding a coven or group is still difficult and still a hot topic within the greater magical community despite the modern convenience of the internet. Why? Because the situation hasn’t changed since covens popped up from the 1950s onward. Most covens are still secretive, still don’t openly advertise, and are still very selective when it comes to who they allow to join and initiate. If it’s so hard to find one, let alone join one, how does one do it? The answer is to search for a community first, not a coven. No matter how secluded you think you are where you live, you can find a community.

How to Find Community

Many of us start online with forums, Facebook groups, and email lists. It’s a start, but it’s not community nor does it reflect what a physical magical community is really like. It won’t give you the experiences of group rituals, long-term witchy friendships, late night booze-fueled talks on magic, or dancing to drumming around a fire late into the night. Online groups can be more full of bickering, cliques, misinformation, psychic vampirism, and emotional drama than physical ones with a fair share of non-practicing arm chair witches who are the equivalent to mean grammar ogres and internet trolls (rocks back and forth in horror at the memories of her days on forums). Why so much crazy? Because people tend to behave much less behind the safety of internet anonymity. Instead of looking for community online, I recommend using the internet to search for databases and websites of local events and groups instead.

The Witches’ Voice (aka Witchvox) is one of the few updated websites with databases for finding local groups and events around the world. It is a very good starting point if you have no idea where to look. Use Witchvox to find nearby Pagan festivals, Pagan Pride events, public rituals, monthly meet-ups, workshops, study groups, as well as groups and covens accepting new members. It can even help you find like-minded people living in your town or area to meet for tea.

Online databases like Witchvox can be a great tool, but serious coven-seekers must keep in mind that the best covens and the ones with lineage don’t advertise and won’t have a website or use a database. Most of Witchvox’s listings are for generic pagan groups or eclectic Wiccan covens. These aren’t to be scoffed at or avoided, however, as many of the more secretive coven leaders will use the public groups as hunting grounds for their own private covens which may be more akin to the traditions and beliefs you are seeking. It’s common for long-term members of a magical community to be in more than one group and have their fingers in many pies. Even if a group or event doesn’t sound like your cup of tea on the surface, you never know who you’ll meet.

Link: Witchvox.com

Festivals are another great starting point. Just search the interwebs for “pagan festival” plus the name of your town, state, province, region, or country, etc and scour the results to see what’s near you. There are pagan festivals and conference held all over the world and even if the closest one to you is a drive of hours or a day or two away – it is worth it to go. Some festivals are even worth it to fly to. Don’t have a car? Many festival attendees set up car pools so you can hitch a ride with folks coming from or passing through your town. There’s always a way to get there, even on a budget. Many festivals and conferences recur annually so you have a whole year to plan ahead and save money for one you really have your heart set on.

A festival is where you’re most likely to find like-minded folks, amazing rituals, workshops that match your interests, and even covens and groups who attend ever year or may be the hosts of the event. Dive in and talk to people, schmooze. If you’re new, you’re going to need to be the social butterfly, introducing yourself, and not expecting people to run up to you to make friends and show you around (though it can happen). To be honest, the times I’ve gone alone to a festival, not really knowing any one, are the times I’ve had the most fun and the best experiences so don’t be shy. You never know who you will meet at a festival so be on your best and most natural behaviour. You could end up meeting and hanging out with community leaders, coven leaders, tradition teachers and not even know it as many attend to simply have fun.

Link: Witchvox’s Pagan Festival Tips

Link: Pagan & Wiccan Festival Etiquette

Pagan Pride events are another great way to enter into your local magical community. Besides all the fun vendors, there are often a good variety of local groups, traditions, covens, and teachers represented. Some may have booths you can go to in order to ask questions about them and events they may host, some groups may be hosting rituals at the Pagan Pride, and others will teach workshops you can attend. Pagan Pride isn’t just for the public and media to get a look at us, it is a networking event for locals to meet other locals. I attended my local Pagan Pride event down the street once only to discover that two of my next door neighbours were pagans and lovely people to boot.

Link: Pagan Pride Project

Other tips for making a good impression for wiggling your way into the local community include turning off your know-it-all and control freak tendencies when socializing (I know it can be hard but telling the coven you’re trying to join that you’re better than them isn’t going to work in your favour), avoiding brown-nosing the elders, leaders, and teachers (they’re just people too and would much rather socialize than be followed around by ass-kissers), and try to be your relaxed, natural self as best as possible avoiding the dangers of TMI (it’s not a competition to show how much you know about Germanic reconstructionism or the place to share the two-hour story about your current boyfriend troubles). If asked when socializing tell people what you believe, what you’re about, what you’re looking/hoping for from your path, as well as the ordinary but interesting things about you (your work, home brewing, or mad axe throwing skills). You’re here to make friends and network, not for a job interview… though I do also highly recommend good personal hygiene. If you show up at an event with greasy hair and dirty clothes, people are going to assume the worst about you and avoid you (and that smell wafting off you).

Lessons of Community

A greater magical community is a great place to start as within one you will learn how to socialize with other witches and pagans which is not always an easy thing. Many start off on their own as solitaries for years or decades and are very set in their ways and can be quite ornery and difficult to get along with. They may also be great, funny, intelligent people with cool skills who are worth learning how to step around the cantankerous broken glass to get to the gold within. This will prepare you for a coven or group as there will always be members you don’t like and there’s nothing you can do about it besides learn how to get along and find things you do like about them. Joining a coven is a bit like being born into a family – most of the time you don’t get to pick who you’re stuck with.

The jokes about “Pagan Standard Time” and getting witches and pagans together being similar to herding cats… well… they’re unfortunately true. Years of being involved in a community helping with or hosting events and rituals will teach you how to successfully organize the cats and how to lead them in ritual without them wondering off or rebelling against your best-laid plans. These are skills you’re going to need within a coven – especially if you happen to end up leading one in the future by some chance.

It’s important to have the ability to play nice with others – it’s why our mothers scheduled play dates for us and put us in pre-school. A community will teach you how to accept and get along with people of differing beliefs and traditions than your own. I personally think this is very important and not enough emphasis is placed on it. If we want the mainstream belief systems to accept us (or at least tolerate us), then we need to learn how to get along and find tolerance within our own community before expecting it from others. I know many witches and pagans who have the attitude that they shouldn’t associate with anyone who doesn’t share the same tradition or beliefs as themselves — to the extent they won’t even attend events that don’t match their tradition resulting in them ending up as lonely solitaries (and possibly the source of internet trolls).

I strongly disagree with this behaviour as it comes off as cult-ish and insular. Traditions should mix, people of differing beliefs should mix. It’s how we learn from each other and learn so much more than we could within our own pigeon hole. Druids, Heathens, Wiccans, Thelemites, Animists, Shamans… we should all be getting to know one another as people as well as learning to understand what we all believe and practice. It fosters tolerance and melts away prejudice and bigotry. Such tolerance will come in handy when you do join a group or coven as, no matter how set or strict a tradition it is, the members will still have their own varying beliefs and personal practices outside of the group. The more people of different paths and beliefs you interact act with, the more you will learn and the more you will understand your own beliefs – this goes for those fitting under the “Pagan” umbrella as well as those who follow the big world religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

The Downside of Community

Festivals and one-off events are magical places where it seems like everything and everyone is only love and hugs and smiles. This results in most people getting the post-festival blues, depressed from the lack of delicious community love they found for a day or a week at an event. This is a happy problem to have, but when you’re a member of a local community and go to every sabbat with the same people, attend the local festival with the same people, and you’re in a coven with the same people all the time, every month, every year… that’s when things can get difficult.

Put any small or large group of people together for long enough and, no matter how much love or good intent there was at the beginning, there is going to be interpersonal drama. What is interpersonal drama? The usual: fights, gossip, ostracization, crazy people being crazy… Only experience can teach you how to navigate it, avoid it, and deal with it and your actions and reactions will depend completely on your temperment. Due to this being pretty common throughout communities (even those of non-pagans), most people who are members of a community will go through a set of phases that look a little something like this:

I love my community/group/coven, I love hosting rituals, and I love volunteering! Love and hugs for everyone! *grins like a fool*
Hmm, where did those creepy weirdos come from? *frowns*
Why are people so mean? Why do people complain so much and criticize every detail of everything I do, but never host anything or volunteer for anything themselves? *curls up into a ball and cries*
Screw everyone, screw the community/group/coven. *mutters bitterly and hides in a dark hole for months or years*
I miss people. We had some good times. Maybe I’ll just go to this one thing… *dips toe tentatively back into community waters*

Rinse and repeat.

Why We Seek Community

We seek magical community for the same reason we seek friendships and relationships. The human condition is loneliness and so we eternally seek connection with other people. If you enter into your local magical community with the intention of building friendships and making long-term connections rather than seeking a leadership role or prestige within a coven, you are much more likely to be well-received, well-loved, and to get the most out of a community you possibly can. After spending years building solid friendships with other magicians you may find yourself invited to join many local groups or even end up creating a group with your like-minded friends instead of joining a pre-existing one.

We can learn a lot on our own today through books, articles, the internet, and personal practice, but such learning cannot mimic or replace the knowledge and experience one gains from talking to others and working magic with others. You can never guess what paths joining a magical community will lead you down, but you will cherish the experiences had, the memories made, and the people met.

So don’t be shy, don’t be afraid. Go outside of your comfort zone and find the depth of connection you crave.

Books For Pleasure:

Online Reading:

References:

The Ritual of the Harvest

The Ritual of Consecration

Further Reading:

Keys of the Moon

Longevity Sigil

Lucifer’s Sigil

Owl-Head Moth

Underworld Key

Defining a Bioregion

Bioregionalism as Philosophy & Practice

Where Does Animism Fit In?

Putting Bioregional Animism into Practice

In Conclusion

Resources:

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Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox Vol. 1-10. Samuel Weiser, 1992.

Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox Vol. 3 No.1. Samuel Weiser, 1992.

Crowley, Aleister. The Winged Beetle. Teitan Press, 1992.

Crowley, Aleister. The Vision and the Voice. Israel Regardie (Sangreal Foundation), 1972.

Crowley, Aleister. Astrology: With a Study of Neptune and Uranus. Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Crowley, Aleister. The Stratagem and Other Stories. Temple Press, 1990.

Crowley, Aleister. De Arte Magica. Sure Fire Press, 1988.

Crowley, Aleister. Absinthe: The Green Goddess. Contra/Thought, 1994.

Crowley, Aleister. The Banned Lecture: Gilles de Rais, to have been delivered before the Oxford University Poetry Society by Aleister Crowley on the Evening of Monday February 3rd, 1930. Black Moon Publishing, 1985.

Crowley, Aleister. Tarot Divination: A Description of the Cards of the Tarot with Their Attributions; Including a Method of Divination by Their Use. Samuel Weiser, 1985.

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Grant, Kenneth. Outer Gateways. Skoob Books Publishing, 1994.

Grant, Kenneth. Hecate’s Fountain. Skoob Books Publishing, 1992.

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Mackenzie, Donald A. Teutonic Myth and Legend. Gresham Publishing, 1915.

Merivale, Patricia. Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times. Harvard University Press, 1969.

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Schulke, Daniel A. Ars Philtron: Concerning the Aqueous Cunning of the Potion and Its Praxis in the Green Arte Magical. Xoanon Press, 2008.

Semple, Gavin W. A Poisoned Chalice: The Death of Robert Cochrane. Reineke Verlag, 2004.

Valiente, Doreen. Where Witchcraft Lives. Aquarian Press, 1962.

WANT MORE?

Purchase Flying Ointments: Black Arts Foundry

WHAT THE HEART WANTS

LOVE ME / WANT ME

DON’T LEAVE ME / DON’T CHEAT ON ME

LEAVE HIM/HER

HEARTBREAK

BREAK IT UP

THE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE

How to Find Community

Lessons of Community

The Downside of Community

Why We Seek Community

Crowley, Aleister. The Banned Lecture: Gilles de Rais, to have been delivered before the Oxford University Poetry Society by Aleister Crowley on the Evening of Monday February 3^rd, 1930. Black Moon Publishing, 1985.