Tag: Witchcraft 101

13 Easy Spells for Halloween

13 Easy Spells for Halloween

Happy Halloween! Here’s 13 spells to use on Halloween. There are many spells that are suppose to work best on Halloween. There’s wishing spells, love spells, luck spells, divination, and more. Most I’ve pulled from Judika Illes’ The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells and I’ve included the sources when possible.

I’m mostly sharing spells that would be fun to try in a secular context, spur of the moments, or with little prep. Most of them are easy enough beginners, laypersons, or the curious can try with little to no knowledge or tools. A few can even be tried at parties or with children.

Additionally, dumb suppers or dumb dinners are very common on Halloween as a means of ancestor worship. Depending on the tradition, either a table setting is placed for the person you wish to invite at your regular sit-down dinner, or a special meal is planned with the exact intention of inviting a spirit or spirits or ancestors. A more casual approach would be to set a plate, glass, and  utensils off the side at a party so the spirit may help themselves. There’s lots of rituals posted about this rituals, so have a quick google to see if one of these rituals is right for you.

Fallng Leaves Wish

“If you can carch a leaf falling from a tree before it touches the ground, on Hallowe’en, you can have a wish.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionry of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 230

Note, other versions of this supersition say it can be done any time of the autumn season and that it grants good luck, a good day, or a good year instead of a wish.

Halloween Wishing Spell

“At midnight on Halloween stand naked before a mirror in a room lit only by a single candle. Silently make your secret wish. Don’t speak until morning.”

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 763.

Halloween Apple Luck Spell

“After nightfall on October 31st, each member of the household receives and apple. Apples may be distributed by hand or you may bob for them, as desired. Everyone must eat their one for a year of good luck.”

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 738

Halloween Candle Luck Spell

“At midnight on October 31st, burn orange and black candles. Allow them to burn out naturally to receive a year of good luck.”

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 738

Halloween [Love] Spell

“1. Write your romantic affirmations and aspiration on a piece of paper.

2. Fold it up over either a lump of dragon’s blood resin or some dragon’s blood powder.

3. Toss it into the fire on Halloween night. “

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 639

Pricking a Candle on Halloween

“Get a candle, set it up, and light it, and stick pins in it – every pin has to have a ‘ditty’ said (this ‘ditty’ is forgotten, unfortunately, but each pin seems to stand for a separate man known to the charm worker.) The candle burns down first to one pin then to another ehen it gets to the right man the door will open and he will appear.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 55

Three Dishes Divination

“Take three dishes, put clean water in one, foul water in another, and leave the third empty: blind-fold a person, and lead him to the hearth were the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand: if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of Matrimoney a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered.”

Souce: Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 120

Wind Divination

“According to Welsh tradition, anyone going to a crossroads on Hallowe’en and listening carefully to the wind may learn what the next year has in store and, when the church clock strikes midnight, will hear a list of the names of those who are to die in the locality over the next twelve months.”

Source: Pickering, David. Cassell Dictionary of Supersitions. Cassell 1995. Page 125-6

Ivy Leaf Divination

“The following Hallowe’en charm was practised recently, to satisfy a morbid desire to know if any member of the family would die during the coming year. An ivy leaf was taken for each one and placed in a bowl of water, to remain all night. The leaves were marked, so that each person knew his or her own, and it was believed that any to die soon would have a coffin marked on the leaf in the morning.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 214

Love Oracle (13) Halloween Daphnomancy

“1. Sit before a low but steady fire in the fireplace. Gaze into the flame.

2. Focus on your beloved or on your desires. Formulate your question.

3. Have a small supply of bay leaves at hand. Without taking your eyes off the fire and your mind from your desire, toss a small handful of bay leaves into the fire.

4. Chant:

“Laurel leaves that burn in the fire.

Draw to me my heart’s desire.”

5. Once the flames die down, repeat again for a total of three repetitions.

If the flames shoot up, or leaves crackle and pop, you’ve received very auspicious signs: your wishes will be fulfilled. However, quiet leaves and dim flames counsel patience or perhaps a change of plans.”

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 319

Mirror Divination to See Your Future Spouse

“Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it and some traditions say, you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 252

“Stand before a looking-glass, combing your hair with one hand and eating an apple held in the other, when the face of the man you are to marry will be seen in the glass looking over your shoulder.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 252

“Superstition suggest that, if a girl stands before a mirror while eating and apple and combing her hair at midnight on Hallowe’en, her future husband’s immage will be reflected in the glass over her left shoulder.”

Source: Pickering, David. Cassell Dictionary of Supersitions. Cassell 1995. Page 126

Note, this is a very common divination mentioned throughout history.

Garlic Protection

“Garlic, hung about the house on All Hallows Eve, will keep away evil spirits.”

Source: Opie, Iona & Tatem, Moira. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press 1992 edition. Page 172

Pacify Ghost Halloween Spell

“At midnight on Halloween bury apples at crossroads to feed hungry ghosts.”

Source: Illes, Judika. The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. Harper Collins 2008 edition. Page 281

Hope you have a happy Halloween!

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Updated the Glossary

Hi folks! I’ve updated the glossary.

Didn’t know there was a glossary? There is It’s small right now, but it’s a long-term project. I write them as I go or as people ask for definitions.

I’ve added energy, aura, polytheism, hard polytheism, soft polytheism, secular, magical practitioner, practitioner, and a few others. I’ve also included my specific beliefs on energy and examples of some of the terms.

Let me know if the definitions aren’t super clear by dropping an email or commenting on this post.

If there’s a term you want to know or need a definition before, you can drop an email or comment below to let me know!

Thanks for your support, friends!

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23 Magic Spells for the New Year

Happy new year! Here’s a quick list of spells (and other magical things) you might want to cast to get the new year off to a fantastic start.

Keep in mind that many of these spells can be cast on yourself, your home, business, workspace, vehicle, friends, family, pets, loved ones, and so on. 

01 Cleanse with energy, energetic healing, or reiki

02 Cleanse with sound (bells, music, chanting, verbal meditations)

03 Cleanse with smoke

04 Cleanse with water

05 Ritualized bath for cleansing, good luck, etc

06 Renew persistent / permanent spells. (Example, a spell on the bathroom mirror to boost self confidence or the spell on your business’ door to increase customer sales).

07 Cleanse with a broom

08 Good luck spells

09 Blessings

10 Add or renew wards and protection spells

11 Prosperity, wealth, and abundance spells

12 Meditation in general, but try a different style of meditation than what you normally use.

13 Financial boosting spells

14 Motivation spell (this is good for those new year’s resolutions)

15 Oathing (to yourself, your gods, etc)

16 Dedications / benedictions

17 Divination such as tarot card readings

18 Make a blessings jar. Write down something your grateful for or whenever something good happens on a piece of paper and add it to an empty jar on a shelf. At the end of the year, burn the papers to add prosperity to the coming year. You can do this same idea with any kind of spell.

19 Add or renew the spells on your wardrobe, jewelry, shoes, etc

20 Deep clean your ritual and/or altar space

21 Make potions or bath salt for traits or spells you want in your life (example: sugar scrub to increase love, salt scrub to keep bad vibes away, a tea potion to increase healthy dietary choices, etc)

22 Inventory and organize your magical and/or spiritual supplies (candles, incense, etc). Donate what you don’t need, if possible.

23 Journal the kind of year you want to have, but coat your words with energy, turning your words into a spell.

Bonus! Try to head outside, weather and ability permitting, to go for a walk and get some fresh air.

3 Reasons Why Spirit Guides Fade Away

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Ever have a spirit friend that you just kind of forgot about? Or that seems to just… go away?

There are many reasons why a relationship with a spirit or spirit guide isn’t as strong as it was beforehand. Here are a few common ones.

The first is you didn’t put in any effort to maintain that relationship. Like any relationship, you actually need to touch base with them regularly to keep up the relationship. We all get busy, but you do need to stop by and say hi to them fairly often for them to be loyal or friendly to you.

The second is you don’t need them anymore. This is usually true for guides, but it can be true for any spirits that you’re friendly with. Sometimes those friendships from work don’t actually carry over outside of work or after you quit a job. It’s the same idea. If you don’t need their support anymore – or don’t seem to need it – then they probably have better things to do with their energy and time.

The third reason is that the spirit is naturally fading away. Spirits often fade away naturally. They get weaker and weaker until they no longer exist in the form that you know them to be in. This is especially common in ghosts or spirits without ties or very old ties. It’s also true for spirits that have no one to call on them. Even if you do call on them, sometimes those spirits are simply tired and cannot go on.

This third reason is also why magical servitors (ie spirits bound or created to serve you, often not very intelligent) fade away. If you create an energy lifeform like that and forget them – which absolutely is easy to do – then they will fade away from your life, sometimes even ceasing to exist.

Spirits are easy to forget about because they’re not tangible. You don’t see them and without a really serious memory to tie them to you, you’ll forget about them. Even if you have a serious memory, they can still slip from your mind. This is why it’s ideal to always have a physical object that you mentally (or even spiritually or magically) attach to the spirit. This gives them weight in your memory and makes them less likely to fade.

There are other reasons why a spirit might be gone from your life – your contract with them is complete, they were destroyed by another spirit, banished, exorcised / cleansed, etc. but the three outlined are the most common for the fading feeling when a spirit returns to you more distant and weaker each time you see them.

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Elemental Combinations

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I don’t really use elements in your traditional ritual set up. I do sometimes use them but it’s often in a more alchemical way than an earth-air-fire-water way.

One of my favorite ways to use elements is to combine them.

A good example of elemental combinations is an air plant. An air plant largely lives on air (with the occasional misting of water) but it’s still a plant so it’s an earth element. That’s three associations (air-water-earth) to deal with for one tiny little plant!

But elemental combinations are actually a really smart way to help set up an altar or a spell on the go. You can just roll with it. Instead of packing a ton of ritual items, you can just pack one or two herbs and that can suffice. It helps if you travel a lot, do a lot of on-the-go rituals, or need to be low-key.

It can also lend a lot of strength to ritual magic. By adding extra fire in a ritual, you’re creation more power so speed things along and adding passion or anger.

Elemental combinations also have the benefit of being dual purpose so you can bring two different energies into a spell at the same time. Need both fire and water? A dried water plan may be the best way to go – just burn it with a candle.

One thing to consider when doing elemental combinations is how they affect one another. Fire and water obviously don’t mix unless you want to destroy the fire or evaporate the water. Similarly, air and earth don’t always get along either. They can change one another though. Air (and water and fire) can all move earth by force. Wind can blow soil, erosion can destroy shorelines, and fire burns through the ground when it can. However, earth can strength air by tunneling it through canyons and caves, water seeps into the ground so it can spread everywhere, and fire lives on wood and natural gases for decades. Similarly, air can strength fire to an uncontrollable level or it can blow a flame out.

In general, all the elements can strengthen and weaken one another, when used in the right balance. You just have to stop and think about how an element functions and what kind of action you want it to perform.

When you combine multiple elements, make sure you’re keeping them in the balance you want. If you only want a little earth, then pick something with a less strong earth element. In my air plant example above, earth is the weakest of the elements because while an air plant is a plant, it isn’t planted in the soil. Water actually is actually stronger with an air plant because you do need to water air plants as needed. Air, obviously, is the strongest of all for an air plant.

Of course, the thing with element associations is that they are NOT universal. Asian occult systems have a lovely elemental system that includes the very combination I’m expressing here in a different way – but they use five elements: earth, air, water, fire, metal. Every practitioner will need to rely on their cultural or traditional folklore in addition to their own personal associations.

Want a quick way to look up correspondences? Check out my online sourced correspondences list.

Does this post look familiar? That’s because some of it appeared in this post from 2017. I’ve expanded upon it here to get further into details on how elemental combinations work.

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How to Identify a Glamour

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A glamour is a type of illusion spell, meant to manipulate, disguise, or otherwise mask something or someone.

That being said, just because they’re manipulation doesn’t mean they’re harmful, negative, or baneful magic.

There are many reasons why someone might use a glamour. They can be used to keep someone safe, to be identified the right way, to boost their self-esteem or confidence, or even to be seen as harmless or helpful to others.

There are a few ways to help determine when a glamour is in use.

1) Aura reading / Energy reading

Most often, energy manipulation is used to create glamours. If you’re skilled at reading aura or energy, then you’ll be able to pick up on an altered aura or energy around the person. This is especially true if you already know what that person’s energy or aura is like. The change in aura or energy might feel bright, expanded, stretched, or wrapped around the subject. You may even be able to detect what kind of glamour is being cast depending on how “loud” it is.

2) Herbal assistance

Oak leaves, eyebright, ash leaves, sandalwood, cinnamon, rose, wormwood, yarrow, mugwort, nutmeg, and rowan can all be used to help see through glamours. Oak leaves are especially traditional for this purpose.

Carry any of these herbs with you to help see beyond what’s presented to you.

3) Hag stone

A traditional hag stone (a stone with a natural hole through the center of it) can often see past glamours. I’ve used seashells with natural holes in them for the same purpose, although sometimes the energy gets “wishy”.

4) Counterspell

You can cast a spell on yourself to see past glamours. I find this is sometimes hit or miss. I think it depends on the type of glamour, who’s casting the glamour, and the power and intention behind each.

5) Declaration

Sometimes, if you know a glamour has been cast, you can simply ignore the glamour. It’s like in any form of media where a character repeats that something isn’t real to beat an illusion or trauma. Same thing. Denying the glamour doesn’t erase the glamour, but it doesn’t work as well if know it’s there. Essentially, by denying it, you’re confirming it’s active.

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Pocket Crystal Glamour Spell

This glamour spell can be for any intention but it’s set into a crystal that you store in your purse or pocket. This allows you to simply recharge the crystal to get the spell going rather than reset the spell every time you want to use it.

It’s very easy to do and can make a difference in your day to day life.

What you’ll need:

  • A crystal or gemstone of some kind

Select a crystal or gemstone to use. This could be a stone that helps your confidence like aventurine or a stone that enhances beauty like rose quartz . You could also use quartz crystal or a stone that feels uplifting to get your spell across. If you’re trying to avoid being seen or noticed, a clear stone like quartz crystal or even a simple garden stone may do the trick. Put a little thought into what stone would be best for you and your glamour.

If you have a piece of jewelry with a stone you’d like to do, you can absolutely cast the glamour on that jewelry instead.

Sit with your chosen stone in your hand and think or speak what you want the glamour to do. Focus until the image in your head is as clear as possible or you’ve described the scenario you want to happen. Take your time.

Push that idea into the stone, letting your energy flow over and into the stone. Awaken the wanted characteristics of the stone you want that match what you’re trying to achieve with the glamour.

This may take a while or it may take just a few seconds. Feel free to come back and set the intention with the stone again if you need a break.

Once you’re satisfied with the stone’s glamour intention, you’re done. Carry it with you and the stone will passively emit the glamour. If you feel like the stone isn’t working as well or you need an extra boost of the glamour, touch the stone and pass a little extra energy onto the stone. You can even repeat your glamour’s purpose to remind the stone what it’s suppose to be doing.

Notes:

  • Recharging the stone monthly with a full moon (or new moon, if the stone is intended to camoflague you) can keep the stone’s glamour running for a long time.
  • If you’re using a camoflague intended glamour, make sure you add a second spell to the stone so you both remember the stone’s existence (so you can recharge it) and so that you can find the stone when you want to.

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What is a Glamour Spell?

A glamour spell is a type of illusion, usually one to help boost some aspect of yourself, like your confidence or beauty. It’s also often used to camouflage or hide something, like an object or even yourself so you aren’t as noticeable. Essentially, they’re either spotlight or invisibility spells. 

I like glamour spells and I use them often. I find them great practice for more subtle spells and can be used in any everyday situation. They are often utilitarian. They can be cast at the drop of a hat without any tools. And they are great for when you want to cast a spell but you don’t know what to cast.

How it’s done is simple.

1) Decide what kind of illusion magic you want to cast. Be specific. Do you want to enhance the shine of your hair or the color of your lips? Do you want people to gender you properly? Do you want extra confidence? Do you want people to not notice you or see you as harmless?

2) Do you want to attach it to an object? If you want your lips to look a particular shade of pink and you achieve that look with lipstick or something similar, you can place a glamour on the lipstick itself to enhance that color and perhaps ignore any imperfections in today’s makeup or ignore a part of yourself that you don’t want to draw attention to. Putting a “I’m harmless and you don’t see me” glamour on a hoodie before going for a run is a great idea against muggings and other violence.

3) To cast the glamour, whether on an object or yourself is requires a clear picture of what you want to happen. You must be absolutely unwavering with the goal. You can be scared, angry, or any other emotion at the time, but you must be solid in what you want to happen.

I find that a specific repeatable phrase helps. “I am beautiful”. “I am seen as harmless to others”. “You do not see me.” “I am not worth your attention.” “You respect me for my confidence and skills.” Affirmation phrases work wonderfully for this, but even a simple phrase can help really hone what the goal is of the glamour. If it’s a simple phrase, then you can repeat it over and over again. You can also repeat it to re-enchant an object with a glamour placed on it.

Once you’ve got your idea down, gather your energy around you. If you’re into aura manipulation or energy manipulation, this is the exact same thing. If energy manipulation isn’t your thing, clear your thoughts and concentrate on making your willpower behind the phrase nice and strong.

If you’re enchanting an object, push the energy into it. Have the energy and your willpower weave into the threads, along the facets of the crystal, along the curve or straight lines of the glass.

If you’re casting it on yourself, pull the energy or your intent around you, like you’re pulling a blanket around your chest and shoulders.

4) To dismiss the glamour, you can let it fade naturally or simply cleanse yourself or the object.

I do find that certain glamours work better with certain techniques, so practice with different kinds and methods of spellcasting to see what works best for you.

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Increasing Your Intuition

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Increasing and honing your intuition isn’t a simple or quick task. It requires dedication and consistent practice. However, there are steps you can take to make things a bit easier to practice that intuition of yours.

Children tend to have very good intuitions but as they grow older, it tends to wane. The same is true for people who take a step back from practicing their intuition. It can stagnate and grow weak. It’s just like the physical body. As a child, you might not have thought anything about sprinting down the street or being particularly flexible. As an adult, it’s less likely that you’ll be able to do what you so easily could as a child without continuous practice.

Write your dreams down

Writing your dreams down can help boost intuition. Many times, premonitions or psychic impressions come to us via dreams. Dreams also provide insight into subconscious thinking and the self.

Try to also record your first thoughts when waking up. This is a difficult habit to get into for some and for others, it’s great to do alongside journaling.

Write down your predictions

Simply writing down things you think (or intuit) might happen is a great way of tracking how often you’re right on these things. It’s similar to testing your psychic awareness with ESP cards. This another journaling technique, but you can also just do it every-so-often and leave that document in a notebook to be discovered later. It’s definitely a long-term test, but it’s one I use often with great results.

Stretching the senses

Sit quietly and extend your senses, trying to hear and sense what’s going on in other rooms and beyond the confines of your home. This is remote viewing, when it’s practiced at a decent range, but mostly it’s just practicing extending your energy and psychic awareness. Think “spider sense”, if that reference is meaningful to you.

A test to see how accurate your sense is needs a second person or camera to record the direction you’re sensing in, so you can validate what happened.

Third-eye Opening Meditation

Meditation is often used for many things and there’s a lot you can get out of it. A third eye opening guided meditation or one that focuses on your intuition is a great and relatively easy way of practicing with a bit of guidance. Repeat your chosen meditation every day or at least consistently to get good results.

Herbal or Crystal Support

There are herbs, incense, scents, and crystals to support intuition. The following is a wide variety of ingredients and tools that can be used to assist, attune, or increase your psychic awareness or intuition. This is not a completed list, especially the crystals section.

Some of these ingredients can be used as a tool, just held or kept nearby, while others might be used topically or even consumed. Everyone will tolerate these ingredients and tools differently, so be sure to check to see which ones are helpful to you.

NOTE! I’ve marked some of the more dangerous or potentially illegal ones with an asterisk *. DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE USING!!!

Plants: Acacia, acorn, anise, ash tree, bay laurel, belladonna*, borage, calendula, camphor, chicory root, cinnamon, cinquefoil, clove, clover, diviner’s sage*, elecampane, eyebright, flax, fly agaric*, ground ivy, hazel, heliotrope, hemp, henbane*, honeysuckle, juniper, lemon grass, lilac, lovage, magnolia, maidenhair, marijuana*, mastic, nettle, nutmeg, orange, patchouli, peppermint, poppy*, rowan, rose, rosemary, rue, saffron, sandalwood, thyme, tuberose, wormwood, yarrow

Other: clear crystals, quartz crystal, aventurine, goldstone, amethyst, agate, silver, water, the moon

Spirit Connections

For some people, they can see or sense spirits easily but not other forms of energy – or vice versa. Someone might be particularly skilled at working with faeries but struggles to read the energy in an item. Or they might have no difficulties what-so-ever in reading the future, but they’re blind to spirits.

If you’re able to work with some sort of spirit, deity, or being, you may be able to ask for guidance in sensing other forms of energy. This will largely depend on your relationship, but it’s something to explore.

Familiars and Constructs

A Familiar, as I defined them, is a being who makes some sort of agreement or contract to work alongside or serve you. This is a spiritual bond and may feel destined.

A Construct, as I defined it, is a being whom you create to serve you. If handled poorly, Constructs may go rouge and become malicious spirits. Older Constructs may developed self-awareness and become spirits or familiars.

Now that the terminology is out of the way, these beings may be able to lend extra boost in power or assist in seeing or sensing what you cannot. They also can warn you, like your intuition would. By using their perceptions alongside your own intuition, you can verify what your intuition is saying. Assuming this sort of verification is meaningful to you.

Divination

Divination is a way of tapping into your intuition. By practicing your chosen divination techniques routinely, you’ll increase your intuition.

This is especially true for divination techniques like scrying, where your intuition and second sight is what’s showing you the future or what you want to see.

There’s a lot of different way to increase your intuition, but the most useful method is consistency and practice. Few people can master a new musical instrument or get a super-fit body in a single day and the same is true with intuition.

Witchcraft 101 – How Much Stuff Do You Really Need?

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If you’ve picked up a beginner’s witchcraft book, especially an older book, you’ll often find these long lists of items for you to acquire as you start your magical or pagan practice. But how much of it all do you really need?

First, let’s cover the basics –

  • You can absolutely use stuff you already have for magic, just make sure you’re not mixing the bowl you eat your cereal in with the bowl you worked non-edible herbs in, for safety’s sake.
  • You don’t need the super expensive or specialty stuff right away. Yes, they’re pretty, support artisans, and may be made a certain way that helps increase your practice, but you don’t need them to start. Wait a bit and see if you’re even going to use that item at all. Instead, swap in with a more common items for now – like a $10 hardware store broom rather than the $300 hand-made besom. You can always upgrade later.
  • Used goods store and discount dollar stores can be extremely useful. Cups, glasses, jars, candles, incense, craft supplies, paper, bowls, and more can be purchased cheaply here and that allows you a bit more freedom to play with items that you think you might need but aren’t sure of.

Still, the lists are often useful because they’re a combination of commonly used items and items the authors probably use themselves. It’s a good thing to look at them because you can see how different people use different things to reach similar results.

When you get lists like this (or you’ve written down lists of stuff you’d like), break down those lists of things you want into five categories: necessities, ritual items, spell items, aesthetics, and miscellaneous.

Necessities are things like lighters, a fire proof bowl, a jar, a candle holder… You get it. It’s stuff that, for most people, you’ll just need. If you don’t work with fire, you won’t need that fire-related stuff, but by and large, 95% of us  use the same kind of necessities.

Ritual items are objects used for rituals or worship. This could be an idol statue of your goddess or it could be a veil to use during ritual ceremonies. You may have nothing in this category, depending on your practice, or you may have a lot of stuff. Try and keep this list short when you’re starting out. Sure, you’d love to have a beautiful altar for your deity, but do you really need that expensive hand-carved ritual bowl right now? Probably not.

Spell items are objects used for spell casting. This could be rosemary and bay leaves. It might be a mortar and pestle or herb grinder. It could be materials for a poppet. It could be a box of candles. It depends on your spell casting style.

Aesthetics are just that  – things you have because they are beautiful. Typically these are items that are expensive or something that’s just pretty.  This isn’t to say they don’t have a use! You may have some beautiful objects that are just pretty but are also useful in your practice. I like to think of this as a “if I never had this, would I miss it?”

Miscellaneous is a category for things that don’t fit anywhere else. Your miscellaneous category might not match anyone else’s. Maybe you want a besom for cleansing, but that’s not a spell or ritual task for you. It’s not a necessity – you could do without it – but you want it. It takes some thinking. It may also be things that aren’t “necessary”, but are just plain useful.

My practice consists of a lot of things so my personal list of things is going to be wildly different from other people’s. This is my list below and a little later in this post I’ll give a recommended list.

Necessities – Lighter or matches, stoneware bowl, bells, paper and ink, knife, water, thread and ribbon (all colors), sea salt

Ritual items – Incense, idols, nature offerings, baked offerings, fresh offerings, offering bowl, cleansing supplies, brass, candles, cleaning supplies

Spell items – bones or hair, blood, sharp scissors, jars, candles (all colors), iron or metal, herbs and similar, sewing needles and fabric, honey

Aesthetics – Most besoms, scarf or veil, cauldron, baskets, ritual clothing

Miscellaneous – Most crystals, beeswax, sand, brooms (not besom), wands, stirring spoons, mortar and pestle, divination tools including tarot decks

My items are a bit odd for some. For example, I heavily use bells in my daily magical practices. I use a specific set of scissors for my practice and a few different kind of knives. A regular stoneware cereal bowl often doubles as a candle holder during spells – I rarely use traditional candle holders in spell work because of this.

You’ll see the usual accompaniments of a besom and cauldron are in the aesthetics category. I don’t use them much. My cauldron is actually really handy when I need a fireproof bowl or a bonfire, but I also have a firepit and metal trashcan. I’d never miss it, if I didn’t have it. I use a veil for divination purposes, but I don’t need it. Same thing with most rocks and crystals. They are in my life and I love them, but I don’t use them as others do. Divination tools aren’t spells for me but they aren’t rituals either. They exist in some weird third space for me.

Whereas my ritual category is pretty basic, but I including cleaning supplies in addition to cleansing supplies. I keep a tiny broom, dusting clothes, sacred waters, and dustpan for cleaning the shrine areas exclusively. Usually it’s just for dust and incense ash, but I like the feeling of even ordinary actions like sweeping can be made sacred this way. It’s all about honoring those there, even the mundane cleaning bits. But, that’s just me and it’s part of my private spiritual beliefs.

Of course, I can define my practice’s items easily because I’ve been at it for over quarter a century. And it does fluctuate over some years as I get into certain hobbies or try new ways of using old tools. If you’re new to practicing, it may be difficult to define these categories or know exactly what you’ll use. It’s still a handy technique, especially if your budget is a concern or you’re trying to keep your materialism to a minimum.

And, since this question you probably want to know, this is my recommended list for beginners of most practices:

  • Stoneware bowls or baking dishes
  • Tealight candles and matches or a lighter or LED candles
  • Glass jars or bottles with lids (or cork that fits the jars / bottles)
  • Embroidery thread, twine, or ribbon
  • Quartz crystals

Most of these items can be purchased at a used goods store or discount dollar stores. The rest should, ideally, be acquired from independent small businesses. Check your kitchen cabinets for herbs or spices and neighborhood sidewalks for rouge flowers. Books can often be borrowed from the library, some even accessible online through your your library.

Take your time gathering things. It’s part of the journey to your witchcraft practice.

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