How to Talk to Spirits of the Dead

Ghosts are probably both the easiest and the hardest types of spirits to have conversations with. Partially because we expect so much and get so little.

Talking to ghosts is one of those things a lot of people want to do. I have a quick guide on how to talk to ghosts and spirits of the dead. This may not get you evidence of the paranormal but it may help you make contact.

How to find a ghost

First, you’ll need to go to a liminal place. A liminal place is somewhere between worlds. A cemetery might be a good bet but you probably have just as much success there as an old crossroad or site of death. Don’t just pick a place that looks like it should be haunted. Pick a place that has rumors of being haunted that you can legally enter. That last bit is important. Don’t trespass just to spot a ghost.

Liminal places aren’t just locations but also things. Doorways are liminal spaces. As are windows, gates, mirrors, corners, and staircases. Rest stops, crossroads, hotels, parks, and gas stations are other liminal places. You can spot ghosts and spirits there at times.

Activity will also increase when spaces are becoming liminal. So houses that are undergoing renovation, for example, will see an increase in activity.

You can, of course, ask for a ghost to come to you. If you’re doing a seance or summoning a ghost, make sure the cleanse the space first and set up protections around yourself.

Remember to sit as quietly and calmly as possible. As much as you might want to wander around in a space, you’re probably more likely to run into activity if you just sit there and are quiet. It’s not as much fun as hunting the ghost but it’s friendlier. It also allows you to get in tune with the environment so you can start noticing the unusual. Cold spots, odd sounds, that sort of thing.

How to make contact with a ghost

Bring an offering to the table. An offering of something to the ghost is a good way to show that you mean no harm. A shot of alcohol, especially clear alcohol is good. Rice, bread, tobacco, incense, and water are also good choices. A ball is good for children and animals. Leave the offering nearby and within sight but out of arm’s reach.

You can also light a candle in their honor and memory but remember your fire safety too. Don’t leave a candle unattended.

Using a calm but confident and sure voice is ideal. You might be a bit scared, especially if you’ve worked yourself up with anxiety. Talking calmly will both calm you down and show that you don’t mean any harm. You can’t do much to spirits anyway but they’re less likely to appear when you’re angry.

Feel free to ask questions and listen for answers. You can use electronic devices, divination techniques, or just listen. You can ask for responses. Avoid demanding answers. That’s not a way to start a conversation. That’s just going to anger anyone around and draw the wrong kind of attention.

Open you mind. Take a deep breath and remain calm. It’s easy to get caught up in emotions not your own. Allow yourself to drift, as if daydreaming, and let instinct and intuition rule. If you feel like walking out of a room and up a flight of stairs, do it. Don’t try to control yourself overmuch unless you’re in danger or risk hurting yourself.

The key here is to allow your mind to seek out the otherness of a spirit. You’re not looking to be possessed or even to commiserate with them. You’re looking for a conversation. Pay attention to weird thoughts not your own. They may be just passing thoughts that we all have but if they’re followed by emotions not your own or there’s a lot of thoughts, someone might be trying to communicate with you

If you feel like you’re losing control or get scared, take control of yourself completely, coming to attention. Pull away, thank the spirit, and take a few moments to ground yourself. Have some water, drink some coffee, eat some chips. Talk to someone, get a hug, or leave the area. Don’t stay connected too long or you risk partial possession and energy draining.

Mediums and other sensitive people have somewhat of an advantage here but pretty much anyone can have a conversation in this manner if given time and the right circumstances.

Divination is a popular tool to speak to the dead. You can use whatever divination method you have on hand. I tend to use pendulums or cartomancy but use a method that you’re skilled in. This isn’t the time to break out a tarot deck if you’ve never read with cards before.

Look for surface meanings. Digging deep for symbolism isn’t going to mean much to a ghost since the chances of them knowing the divination method well is unlikely. The Death card is probably going to mean death. You might want to stick with the Major Arcana if you’re using tarot cards.

Pendulums are great tools for talking to a ghost because you can get “yes” and “no” answers pretty easily. You may even be able to use the pendulum to track or find a ghost. Make sure you keep your arm and hand steady.

Working out a communication system is always a good idea, especially if you’re planning on long-term communication.

Having a ghost knock once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’ is a common means of communication. Passing by a light or fussing with a light is another good one. You can do active communication by asking a question and rewinding to listen for an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) response.

I’ve even used a method of having a spirit tap my right shoulder for “yes” and left shoulder for “no”.

It may take a while to work out which system works best for you, especially if you’re limited with equipment.

Finally, remember to document everything. Whether you update a blog, write in a journal, or jot a note down on your phone, make sure you document everything. It’s unusual to have activity in one night. Instead, focus on tracking that activity over the course of a few days to determine the type of spirit around.

Spirits exist in various manners. Even ghosts are not a singular “type”. Poltergeists are more vicious than a ghost and a residual haunting is tends to be less aware than a ghost. Memories or fragments are barely conscious and tend to be something of a one note kind of haunting.

You can do research to figure out what kind of ghosts there are but you’re not going to be able to hold a conversation with a fragment or residual haunting. You’re looking for an active and aware consciousness.

Overall, the best way to talk to a ghost is to remember that they were once people. They had lives, loved ones, and jobs. They existed and, despite being dead, they’re still people. People without bodies but still people. Be respectful and patient.

Have fun!

Begin Again [Spell Saturday #28]

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Sometimes, we just need to hit the refresh button on our lives. This spell won’t do precisely that but it’s pretty close. It’ll help you make a fresh, new start.

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What you’ll need: 

  • Flower, flowering plant, or petals from a flower
  • Water
  • Piece of quartz crystal
  • Candle

First, make sure you’ve cleansed your home, car, work, and self. For this, perhaps a light personal cleansing followed by cleansing whatever spaces and stuff you need to cleanse, followed by a deeper cleansing might be ideal. This spell should be done immediately after your self cleansing.

Light the candle and put the flower, candle, and water in front of you.

Hold the quartz crystal in your hand and just sit with it, meshing your energy with yours. If you’re into programming stones, you’ll want to program it to hold the energy you’re about to give it. (More on programming stones in the notes.)

When you’re comfortable and ready, say the following,

“I am beginning again.”

Blow your breath across the quartz.

“I breathe newness, energy, and light.”

Pass the quartz through or over the fire.

“I have fire, passion, and glory at my side.”

Touch the quartz to the petals of the flower.

“I am blooming, growing, achieving. I am beautiful even in the worst storms.”

Dunk the quartz in the water and pull it back out.

“I have healed, I have surpassed, I will never be broken.”

Now hold the quartz to your heart and say,

“I have begun again and will live my life as I wish, happy, and free.”

Carry the stone with you and/or keep it by your bedside. Hold it when things get rough or you’re beginning to fall into old habits.

Notes:

  • You can use any candle color here. I prefer white but yellow, red, or blue might be appropriate too.
  • Any flowering plant will work, especially if they’re your favorite flower. Roses are a good choice.
  • I like to use purified water for this spell.
  • This might be a great choice for a spell to cast on a quartz crystal piece of jewelry.
  • If you’re into programming your crystals, your crystal should be programmed to give you energy, light, and remind you of the spell you’re casting. It should serve as a gentle reminder of the life you want to live and the promise you’ve made to yourself to start again.

Happy casting!

5 Differences Between Your Imagination and Astral Travel

I think one of the number one questions I get about astral travel is how to know if you’re actually astral travelling or if you’re imagining it.

Here’s the secret – there isn’t a way to know, for sure, that you’re not imagining things.

But there is a difference, to some degree. You see, imagination is something you’re creating for yourself whereas the astral and spirit realms exist without us. That being said, dreams and your imagination are somewhat connected to the spirit and astral realms. Your spirit is somewhat connected, after all. You can affect those realms and we can create changes within those realms. It only follows that we can even create those realms with our minds.

We’re more powerful than we know, after all.

But there are ways to make sure that what you’re experiencing isn’t merely made up in your head.

  1. Is everything centric to you? We tend to play hero in our own heads. So a good way to tell if you’re making things up is to do a Mary Sue check. Does everyone love you? Does everyone hate you? Do you always succeed? Can you never be hurt or are your injuries easily remedied but seem super serious at the time? You might be making things up if this is true.
  2. Can you change form? In the astral and spirit realms, you can shape-shift but it’s fairly rare in your imagination to picture yourself as something else. Oh, it’s extremely common to imagine yourself more (or less) beautiful than you are. The change I’m referring to is turning yourself into a frog or something. Can you do that? Then you’re probably not making things up.
  3. Do the people around you live their lives without any thought to you? Spirits have lives of their own to attend to. It’s kind of unusual to daydream yourself in a crowd with no one acknowledging you unless that’s the specific things you’re intending to imagine. Spirits may acknowledge you the same way you acknowledge someone walking by you on the street. That should be the same. If that’s not the case, such as no one paying attention to you no matter what you do or everyone paying attention to you, then you’re probably making it up.
  4. Check gravity and physics. Things in the spirit and astral realms don’t operate according to physics and gravity. It’s fairly uncommon to run into this in your imagination without it being purposeful.
  5. Are you experiencing time skips? I find that time in the astral and spirit realms is fairly useless. You can live an entire day in the spirit realms but only a few minutes in the physical realm. Conversely, you can sit down to dinner with friends in the spirit realm and find that you’ve lost several hours rather than the twenty minutes you might have expected. That doesn’t happen usually with daydreams.

Bonus: consistency is sometimes hit or miss. With your imagination, you might dream up new and better ways to accomplish the core of the daydream. But with the spirit realms, that probably won’t happen. Things will stay the same. That being said, you can affect the spirit and astral realms, so you might find that things change quickly. It’s very YMMV.

It’s going to be hard to tell the difference at first but with practice, you should be able to pick up on the differences fairly easily after a while. Be patient and good luck!

How to Get Started On A New Path

So you’ve been doing you thing for a while now but it doesn’t feel right anymore and you want to try something new. You’re not the same person you were when you started practicing so why shouldn’t your practice change too?

But knowing where to start when you already have a foundation is hard. You know the basics that may be shared between your old path and your desired new ones but how do you actually, you know, start again?

htsanpp

Write down what’s essential to you

This may seem simple and weird but it’s an important step. Don’t exclude anything! If you love taking naps, for example, write that down too.

Writing down what you love, both mundane and spiritual, will allow you to focus on what is the most meaningful to you. Once you’ve decided what’s truly important, you can decide whether you want that to be included in your practice. You can begin again by focusing on the core of what you want and build out from there.

You can also use tarot card prompts to channel some things. For example, if you want to be more like the High Priestess include that.

Mood board

I’m a big fan of mood boards and a mood board really helped me narrow down and nail a few goals for me when I was floundering a few years back. I used Pinterest for mood boards personally but some people use corkboard or similar set ups.

Mood boards can help you identify things you can’t name. For example, you might select five images of sunsets because you have a particular affinity to them. Then a few images of fire which feels similar. Maybe celestial fire is something you’ll want to incorporate in your practice.

It’s also super useful if you’re trying to build a witchy aesthetic to flush out and unite different areas of your practice into one cohesive unit. Plus mood boards have a tendency to be beautiful and that’s inspiring.

Talk to people & read things you don’t agree with

There are lots of magical systems that don’t mesh with my style. But reading books and posts about people’s experiences with this systems can allow me to knock a few cluttered thoughts loose.

Talking to people is similar. I’ve sat in on workshops about magical systems or topics that are completely contrary to my own style. It feels wrong to me even at times because they’re experiences clash so much with my own.

I might not gain anything but knowledge out of reading such materials or talking to people but it allows me to think about my own practice in a different perspective and that’s really important. being self-aware is a difficult process so anything that can help with that is useful.

Meditate and self-introspection

Meditation, self-introspection, and shadow work can help you realize what areas of your practice are lacking and what you actually want to do.

Identifying why your old practice isn’t working for you anymore is going to be a difficult process and a personal on. No one else can express how you’re feeling in that regard but you.

You’ll want to address various spirits and deities as well, asking their opinions or pull away from them as respectfully as possible, as needed.

Having a conversation with yourself and addressing any issues you have with your current practice will help you know what to avoid for the new practice you’d about to adopt.

Experiment!

This is probably the most important step. Just go and try some things. Talk to some people and join in on public rituals. Ask someone willing to answer questions about their practice and try a handful of spells that you wouldn’t normally attempt with your current path.

Spending time reaching out and touching what else there is in the world can help you figure out if the new things you’re trying to adopt into your practice are going to work for you or if they’re just good in theory.

Once you’ve decided what you want in your new path, it’s time to pull away from your old path.

Identify who you need to say goodbye to

Spirits and deities may change over time. Be as respectful as possible when you leave these relationships. Make a big offering and say goodbye. Speak with sincerity and thank them for what they’ve done for you.

You may not even have to leave the relationship with this entity but rather shift the tradition you’re working within. Or, you merely want to keep honoring them but not work with them. Whatever the specific case is, make sure you tell them what you’re planning and ask for their opinions on it, if possible. You don’t need to throw everything away simply because you’re moving on.

It isn’t easy to leave such relationships so give yourself time to mourn the end of the relationship as a whole.

Rehome and sell items that no longer mean anything to you

There are lots of practitioners out there willing to buy or swap ritual items with you. If you move from a ceremonialist system to a more folk-based one, you might want to sell off some ritual items.

Or, maybe you’ll want to talk to some people rehoming their items so you can pick up some new items for your own practice without having to pay full price.

This is another one of those difficult steps because you’ll probably find that there’s items you don’t want to get rid of but have no use for. Or items that might be useful but you’re not sure of. In this case, I recommend sticking the item in a forgotten drawer. In sixth months, go back to that drawer and look through it. If you didn’t think of the item, forgot about it, or discovered you didn’t care for it as much as you thought you did, get rid of it. If you did think of it but still didn’t find a use for it, keep it somewhere. Don’t toss things you still love.

Cleanse all the things

Cleansing your home, workspace, tools, clothes, bedding, work, and vehicles will help immensely towards setting up a new practice.

Focus mostly on cleansing everything you use for magic, from spell books to simple spoons. Then you’ll want to cleanse items that aren’t magical in purpose but still stuff you use and wear, such as shoes, clothing, etc.

A cleansing of your entire home, workspace, and vehicles can make getting a fresh start possible. Even cleansing your rug or coffee mug can go a long way.

Don’t forget to clean as well. A cluttered home doesn’t help you start anew. Cleaning and cleansing should always go hand in hand.

Keep a journal

Keeping a record of the changes you’re making and the changes you want to make can really help motivate you. Bullet journals are a really good idea for this but even doing a tumblr blog can be useful.

It will also allow you to track your personal progress and encourage you to keep to your goals. Just because something is spiritual in nature doesn’t mean you can handle it like a mundane issue, after all.

That’s it! That’s some really basic ideas on how to get started again. It’s a really painful process at times to realize that you’ve outgrown your old practice but it can be really fulfilling to allow yourself to embrace a new path that suits the you now.

Know What You’ve Done [Spell Saturday #27]

Sometimes, we just need people to stop and realize that they’re asshats. We need them to realize that they’re making other people upset. We need them to see their own lies and we need to cause them to be disillusioned.

This spell can do that for you.

What you’ll need:

  • String (any color), about 1 1/2 foot in length
  • Rose petals or rose water.
  • Eyebright
  • Hot water
  • Picture of target (optional)

First thing you’ll need to do is to boil some rose petals in hot water. If you have rose water on hand, then you can just use that but we’re making a sloppy version of rose water here.

If you’re making rose water, strain most of the water into a separate jar. Keep some water and the rose petals. Put the string in a bowl and pour the rose petals and remaining water over it. Let cool for at least 10-15 minutes. We’re not looking to dye the string, just infuse the string with rose.

Once cool, go ahead and pull the string free and set it aside to dry fully.

Now take the string and tie a knot for every single thing you’d like your target to realize. This should be their own behavior and you should word each thought as  “[blank] believes they are without flaw” or whatever. You’re not disillusioning them yet. You’re confirming their beliefs right now.

Once done, put it aside for a while. I usually leave it overnight but you don’t need to wait that long.

Boil hot water once again and add some eyebright. Let cool to warm bath temperature (you should be able to put your hand comfortably in the water). Now plunge the string in the water then pull it out and unknot one of the knots you made before, saying “[blank] now realizes they are flawed].

Repeat the process of plunging the string in the water, pulling it out, unknotting and declaring the reserve of whatever you said before until you’ve unknotted the entire string.

When done, leave the string in the water until the water has cooled entirely. I typically let it sit overnight.

Finally pull out the string and let dry. You have several options with the disposal. You can burn the string, tie it around a photo of the target, or bury it in their yard.

Notes:

  • You don’t need to use very much eyebright or rose petals. A pinch is just fine.
  • If you have a picture of the target, you can put it under the bowl when you’re soaking the string.
  • The rose here stands for secrecy, hidden intentions, and ego.
  • Eyebright is to make the eyes clear.
  • You can add some clear quartz crystal to the eyebright bowl, if you like, but toss the water afterwards.
  • I like to use clear bowls for the eyebright part of the spell, mostly for “clear sight” sort of symbolism.
  • This spell is much faster if you have a water kettle to boil the water quickly.

Happy casting!

Skin, a short story

This one includes some body horror so heads up there.

Continue reading →

Autumn is Here!

Yay! Autumn is here at This Crooked Crown and I’m so excited. Autumn is, hands down, my favorite time of year. It’s also my family’s favorite time of year so it’s usually pretty awesome around here.

Traditionally, things are slow in September and pick up quite a bit in October because, well, witches. Despite that, I always take Halloween off. I rarely perform any rituals or attend any parties but there’s something about sitting around and simply enjoying the highs of energy on that night without having to actually do anything with it.

But! That’s me. Most people have a great big o’ plan for Halloween-time and I love hearing about them.

This year’s is extra special. There’s a bunch of reasons why that is but the most important is that this year my family has Halloween week off. Not just the day or the day after but the whole week. We didn’t even initially plan it that way but it’s really fun to think that we’ll be home to celebrate our family’s favorite holiday together for once. We’re getting a dragon. I’m excited. Also pumpkins. So many pumpkins.

We’re also planning a trip to Salem. Yup. The most commercialized witchy town in the world. Despite living less than 80 miles from Salem, it’s been about a decade since I’ve been there. I’ve only visited two other times in my memory but it’s always a fun adventure. Perusing history is always sobering and it’s nice to wander around and to run into fellow practitioners all the time. Especially around this time of the year.

I’ll have  more updates on that front as we nail down times and date for the trip (always the trickiest part of any venture for us) and expect a ton of photos, especially on instagram.I suspect it will be the Thursday before Halloween. Just saying.

Halloween will hopefully see the launch of a project of mine. It’s a bit too early to announce it quite yet but I’m hopeful. And, if you didn’t catch it last month, I recently launched a Patreon with exclusive spells and witchy short stories. Pledge your support to get some pretty awesome goodies.

Excited yet? Me too! This should be a stellar autumn this year and I can’t wait for it.

The River, an original short story

There was splashing in his river. He felt the disruption along the his spine of water’s surface and the ripples clattered against the rocky shore. It was something large,

something frantic but not drowning.

Not yet anyway.

He glided through the cool waters of his own self, the core of his essence and consciousness, moving forward and broke the surface near his source, colorless eyes seeing the scene before his.

There was a human in his river.

She was dressed in a simple but fine linen gown the color of lilacs in the spring or antiqued hydrangeas. The delicate silver details on the hem of the gown and cuffs of the sleeves mirrored the strip of silver was across her forehead, holding back her curling oak brown tresses. A maiden. She was scared.

She splashed through his river at the leanest part, stumbling over the rocks he had been smooth over so much time. She kept glancing back in fear but moved forward
nonetheless. His river wasn’t big, not here anyway. It was near his source so he was barely more than a creek but she struggled. Her linen gown was heavy on her legs and fear kept her looking back, unable to watch her footing in her flight.

She was too big to drown. He could do it, if he wanted to claim such a sacrifice. Humans downed in less water than him but it would take a lot of effort. It was easier to drown a human downstream, where he had more of himself to work with, where humans swam in his depths and claiming one was as easy as time.

He slid his head to the side to watch whatever she was running from. The maiden tripped and bloodied her knees on water worn rocks on the other side of him when her pursuer appeared.

It was a knight. Knights were delightful to drown. So much heavy metal, so much to wear at and rust. The metal made their movements so loud and he could silence their clanging by filling their lungs with his water. They were such proud men, so incredulous that they’d die by something as simple as him, as water. They feared him but refused to speak of it as such. Being afraid of water was foolish, they thought.

They were so very, very wrong.

The knight was running her down, his sword out and edge glinting bright as the sun hit the blade through the canopy of trees above. His helmet was on so he was nothing but a suit of metal clattering towards the water.

The maiden sobbed loudly, crying out, and scrambled on her hands and feet over the rocks, tripping over her gown as she struggled to her feet.

The knight clamored his way across the water, the surface splashing against his knees as he gained on her.

There! The river rose up is an huge rush, a momentous effort but so worth it. The knight flailed as the water came over him heavily, pulling him down to the riverbed. Rocks battered at the suit of arm as the knight struggled against his current. But he simply flowed over the knight, kept the water heavy, dark, and cool. Made it difficult to see the surface.

It took a long time but the knight drowned in less than two feet of water.

The maiden sobbed on the shore, her lovely face hidden in her bloodied hands. Her dress trailed in the water but she was out of his reach.

He had his sacrifice. A penance for disturbing him so close to his source. He drifted away, back downstream towards the swimming humans and their silly, frustrating boats, pleased and sated. A calm river once again.

The River  is an original work by Samantha L. Davidson / This Crooked Crown. All rights reserved. Support This Crooked Crown on Patreon for exclusive spells, short stories, and novellas.

Water Divination – How to Fathom the Depths

Water divination is, hands down, one of my most favorite methods of divination. It’s not the first one I learned (crystal scrying was) but it’s definitely one that I go back to again and again.

You can scry with any kind of reflective surface. Mirrors are the most common but historically crystal, glass, water, blood, and oil have all been used. I’ve personally used window pane, turned off monitor screens, cell phone screens, and once, an incredibly shiny notebook.

Scrying isn’t like tarot card reading or even tea leaf reading. There aren’t any meaning you can go to and rarely is there anything to actually look at. Instead, you stare at the reflective surface and pay attention to what you sense in your mind. The thoughts that come to your brain and the images that form there. I’ve rarely actually seen images in the water. The reflective surfaces are more about allowing you to see what’s in yourself. No two scryers will see the same thing, after all, so it’s a lot of independence practice and trusting your intuition in order to get a reading.

Because of it’s a very intuitive art, some people will be better at it than others. Practice can even things out but the most important thing is to trust yourself. When I do divinations for myself, I rarely assume that what I’m seeing will absolutely come true. Instead, I view divinations as the most likely outcome, at this specific point in time, until something changes. Having a divination allows me to hedge my bets and set up contingencies. Since that’s how I view divinations, it means that I don’t mind using my intuition to make a decision because I probably have a back up plan outlined in my head.

Anyway, water divination is definitely old and definitely worth pursuing, especially if you feel connected to water in any way. Here’s how to do it.

Find a suitable vessel for the water. You can use anything but a shallow bowl or plate works well for beginners. The preferred color would be black but white or clear works well. If you’re using a clear bowl, make sure that the table you’ll be working on is cleaned and maybe drop a plain black cloth on the table. It’s up to you and experimenting will reveal the best results here. But for beginners, stick with a plain black bowl or clear bowl with black cloth under it.

Fill it most of the way with water. The water you use will depend on you and even your questions. When in doubt, use purified, spring, or tap water. Since I keep pitchers of purified water around, I usually just pour from that but if I need to get my serious witch game on then I go for the bottles of collected water.

Put the bowl before you, and sit in a chair that’s not too comfortable but not too uncomfortable either. You can do whatever you like with your hands. I usually put them on either side of the bowl, to ensure I don’t faceplant into the water (a definite risk for me that I’ll explain in a bit) but you can put them in your lap or on the bowl if you like.

water-sources

Now lean forward enough that you can see the reflection of the water but not your own reflection. This might be a bit tricky and you might need to play with any light sources nearby in order to get a good reflection without you. It won’t ruin your divination if you do find yourself in the reflection but I find staring at my own face distracting and end up embarrassed at whatever silly expression is on my face.

Think or say what you want to divine about. Describe it if you have to. Wait as long as you feel comfortable doing so. I find that after a few minutes I’ll drift closer to the water (hence the aforementioned faceplanting) and and my eyes will lose focus. That’s OK. Just let whatever come to mind happen.

Sometimes I’ll get particular sensations, like the color green or a snake. Other times I’ll see mini scenes in my brain like a movie reel but the people are faceless or stand-ins with people I know or even celebrities. Many times I’ll get a bunch of things all at once and I won’t be able to decipher it until later when writing it down. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense now or even after you’ve written it down. Scrying is one of those arts that is either incredibly, frustratingly vague or dead-on, scary accurate.

Talking aloud might help you find more and clarifying what you’re seeing but it also might disrupt your conversation. It’s a hit or miss thing for me. Sometimes I’ll talk and other times I won’t.

After a while, you’ll feel your concentration break. Maybe your mind slips into think what’s for dinner or you’ll feel the table edge pressing into your chest or your nose touches the water or something. It could be a phone ringing or the cat brushing against your leg. Whatever disrupts you concentration marks the end of that session.

Dump the water, clean the bowl and try again  at a later time. Don’t try to give it another go with the same question right away. It’s best to let what you’ve seen rest and sort itself out in your brain before trying again.

If you want to do more than one question at a time, you can use the same water or swap them out. It’s up to you. You can dump the water down the drain, drink it, or use it as an offering or water your plants. Whatever you want. I usually offer it to the garden as thanks but sometimes will pour it back to the source or down the drain.

And that’s it! It’s one of those easy to learn but difficult to master skills and one I think it’s super important to build up your belief in your own intuition. Give it a try and see how it works for you!

Doll Spell for Employment (Spell Saturday #26)

This is for when you have a specific place in mind that you want to work at.

What you’ll need:

  • A tiny poppet (see below)

Make a tiny poppet. We’re talking smaller than hand-held. Thumb size even. Stuff that bad boy with all the money drawing ingredients you can get your hands on (need help? look at my list here.) Draw/paint/embroider it to look like you as much as you can. Doodle money in one hand and something like a paycheck (or more money) in the other. If the place has a uniform or a name tag, make sure you draw yourself in said uniform or name tag.

If you’re into this sort of thing, add something personal to it (hair, nail clippings, blood, a sock, etc). Your poppet may be too small for this but you can always rub your fingers over it meaningfully or spit on it.

Now say something over the poppet. You can use whatever you want, getting as details as you want, or you can use the following:

“Where this doll goes will be the place from which my money flows.”

Now go to the place and discreetly drop the dolls somewhere. In a potted plant, in the drop ceiling of the bathroom, behind a shelf, etc. Somewhere inaccessible. Bonus points if you get it in the manager’s office. Ideally this will be when you pick up the application, drop it off, go in for an interview, or talk to the manager.

Notes:

The easiest poppet to make, especially for this spell, is to simply draw a person on a piece of paper, fold it up as small as possible, and go from there. Poppets made of tissues, a glove, cloth, or clay also work. Use whatever’s the easiest to work with.

This spell requires some serious ninja witch stealth moves. Leaving the poppet in the bathroom or outside the building but in the parking lot is probably the easiest way to go about this.

Originally posted over on my tumblr.