protection Archives - Seo Helrune

June 6, 2023June 6, 2023

Reconstruction and Gnosis: The First Experiment

So there I was, standing on a little finger of land between two streams with my jacked-up Götavi grid drop-cloth. I was on my magical experiment bullshit again up a mountain in WV, perfumed with eau de DEET and wishing it wasn’t so fucking humid.

Crunch time had come; it was time to test my working theory. And come Hel or high water, I was going to test it—sweat patches and all!

(Oh the glamour!)

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Allow me, dear reader, to wind things back a little.

The Story So Far

This series began as a single post that was supposed to stand alone. But the more I wrote, the clearer it became that I had too much to say on this topic to fit in a single post. Eventually (and much like my antiperspirant in WV), I had to concede to a greater force, and thus this series was born.

If this post is the first you’ve seen of this series, I encourage you to go back and read the rest in order. There have been five posts so far. Five posts filled with research, musings, and discussion that you won’t want to miss out on going forward. It’s all necessary context for what comes next. I’ve even linked them below to save you the trouble of hunting them down.

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Why Is Life So Busy?

It’s been a while since the last installment and you may have been wondering where I was. Well, life got kind of exciting! I got jumped by a bunch of deadlines and facilitated a week-long devotional magical practice for the Cult of the Spinning Goddess group. I also held some community-building events called Spin ‘n’ Witches, gave a class, and kicked off a podcast with Morgan Daimler. In the middle of all of that, I’ve also been working on several books, learning Japanese with my kid, and studying Welsh (as well as doing all the usual life-y stuff).

And that’s even without mentioning my personal magical practices (both the daily and experimental). For me, there are no words on the screen without the dirty boots, sweat patches, and magical adventures. As weird as it may sound, this kind of work is also really whole-making for me, a key part of my wellness. It’s a good portion of the roots that help the tree that is me to grow.

In one way or another, practice forms a large part of the foundation for pretty much everything I produce. And I will absolutely move some projects to the back burner if it means reclaiming some time for the work that makes my souls sing. Which is what happened to these blog posts for a while, and I’m never going to apologize for that.

But anyway, as Machine Gun Kelly and/or Corpse Husband say/s in their joint masterpiece, Daywalker: “I came back.”

From Books To Boondocks

When I last left you, I’d just finished talking about the research and planning phases of magical experimentation. In this post, I’m going to talk about that first experiment and how it all shook out. This is where the gnosis is really going to start to come in. If that isn’t your thing or reading other people’s gnosis makes you rage, then I advise you to hit the back-button.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

For those of you who stick around, I hope these posts serve to illustrate how wonderful it can be when research and gnosis meet. Because frankly, it’s amazing and I hope some of you feel inspired to go make your own magical adventures.

Before we go any further though, did you know that the word “boondock” comes from the Tagalog word bundók, meaning “mountain”? If I ever get to name a mountain, I’m calling it “Bundók-Pendle Mountain” so it means “Mountain, Hill, Hill, Mountain.” You know, as you do.

Prologue To An Experiment

So anyway, I initially began researching the grid in 2019. However as it turns out, nothing wrecks plans for magical mischief and mayhem like a global pandemic. But by the time May 2021 rolled around, things seemed to be getting back on track thanks to the advent of the first COVID vaccine. So I booked a cabin up a mountain in West Virginia with a couple of friends. We were going to hang out, do the experiment, then hang out some more.

When it came to the experiment though, my friends realized they weren’t actually all that comfortable with active participation. One was concerned about the possibility of adverse effects on their health issues, and the other just didn’t want to do something with such a high degree of uncertainty attached.

These were both sensible concerns. Some forms of magic really aren’t good to participate in if you’re already sick. And some people have vulnerable folks in their care to think of too. So while I would have loved for them to have also taken part, I’m also really glad they didn’t. When you’re attempting to work with historical magic in this way, you need to know and be honest about your limits. And I’d much rather my friends tell me “Hey, this isn’t for me,” than participate and have something potentially bad happen to them.

Instead, my friends acted as observers, which meant my experiment also had the benefit of an outside perspective as well.

And that was one hell of a silver lining.

Back To The Experiment

Anyway, back to that little finger of land between two streams (and those sweat patches).

Before setting up, I made offerings to the local spirits and explained what I was going to do. The mountain was active; I’d been catching glimpses of the local beings since I’d arrived. It would have been rude to not ask.

There was a sense of acceptance toward my request, but also the feeling that it was only good until nightfall, and so I proceeded. Despite my earlier plans to set up the grid after circumambulating, I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to see where I’d walked without first setting up the grid. The ground was too uniform to discern marker points. So I opened the grid and set up posts at the north-northeast edge.

From that point on, the set-up went pretty much as planned. I circumambulated the space counterclockwise and made an offering of wine to Hel, asking her to allow temporary passage for some from her realm. Then I settled at the southwest edge of the grid.

According to my notes, I heard a male voice while circumambulating but couldn’t make out what he was saying so began to sing the dirge. Whenever I sing this dirge in ritual, I do so in a light trance in order to visualize/see the journey between the realms. This time when I peered at the road, I saw a blonde-haired man dressed in a white tunic.

A suspiciously shining man, as it happened.

As I finished the song, I heard what sounded like geese. And when I checked doorposts to the north of the grid, to my satisfaction, the space between the posts appeared “pixelated.”

There was a cool breeze like wove its way like a ribbon through the trees and the skies above grumbled, three thunderous complaints.

“Yes!” I remember thinking to myself. “This is working just like I thought it would!”

The Curveball (Because What’s An Experiment Without One?)

But that’s when the shift happened and my working theory went down like Das Boot. I’d originally theorized that the grid worked like other intermediary spaces I’d worked with like as crossroads effigies and doorposts. However, the shift that had taken place was more like what I’d experienced in my mound sitting experiments instead. When I’d sang the dead through doorposts or crossroads effigies in the past, I’d felt them enter into the space. Usually, their entrance came with a cool breeze that flowed from whichever medium they’d passed through. But most importantly, all of this would take place within an intermediary space rooted in this Middle Earth.

My experience with mounds though, is that the space shifts so that it’s no longer rooted in Middle Earth. It reminds me of the difference between being inside a different nation’s embassy while still within your own country and in your nation’s embassy while within another country.

Recognizing that feeling from those experiments with mound sitting, I moved onto the cloth, my ears filled with a buzzing that sounded like white noise. The cloth felt cool to the touch, and I had the feeling that someone was on their way.

I was both shocked and delighted by the discovery.

Unfortunately though, that thunder had only heralded a coming storm. I wasn’t able to spend as much time feeling out my discovery as I would have liked. So I began the process of wrapping things up. I sang the dead back and made offerings of gratitude to Hel. Then I closed down the doorposts and grid, before circumambulating clockwise to return the space back to how it was before.

(Or so I thought.)

The Experiment: Observer Perspective

From talking to my two wonderful observers, I learned that during the circumambulation they’d seen the leaves to the north of me appear to “twitch.” From their perspective, it appeared as though whoever was making the leaves twitch was moving toward me.

One observer seems to have seen the same ribbon of wind I’d seen, and described it as coming from the east, before veering to the north, west, and south to wrap around the space. What’s especially interesting to me is that this ribbon of wind seems to have moved counterclockwise as I had during the circumambulation.

“Greetings! Have you heard the word of Beyla?”

The next main observation was that as I was getting into the rite, a big bee appeared in front of the door to the covered porch they were observing from. Apparently, this bee seemed to be trying to get in and was loud enough to drown out my voice. They (as in the bee) went on their merry way again once the rite had ended.

The Aftermath I

As I mentioned before, I only had the benefit of observers because my friends hadn’t felt comfortable with active participation. Again, I’m going to reiterate the fact that you really don’t know what’s going to happen when creating magical experiments based on historical sources, places, or objects. And this is also true for the aftermath.

The first thing I noticed in the aftermath was that I kept seeing the blonde man in the white tunic in the land outside. There was something very elven about him, but his presence confused me at that time given my location. (Now I’m a few more experiments in with the grid, his presence makes total sense.)

The next thing I noticed was that the cloth itself had a certain energy to it, and was still chill to the touch. The lights in the cabin dimmed as I brought it in, and one of my friends expressed the concern that it might not be safe to drive with in the car. Agreeing with her, I worked up a quick and dirty chaos magic sigil for containment on a plastic bag big enough to hold the cloth and stuffed it in.

The room visibly brightened.

Once that was taken care of, I made sure to purify myself as I always do after clarting around/potentially clarting around with the dead and settled in for the night.

The Aftermath II

The afternoon gave way to the evening and eventually night. We ate dinner together and got comfy in the lounge to hang out and shoot the shit. After a while though, we began to notice that there were creaking noises coming from an empty wooden chair in the lounge area. It sounded exactly like the kind of creaking older chairs make when someone moves, shifting their weight. Curious, I put my hand out to feel the space and felt a cool presence there.

We had an unseen guest.

He (because he felt like a “he”) would remain with us for the rest of the evening and into the next morning.

When something like that happens, I generally find that you have a few options. You can ignore them and hope they don’t cause trouble. Another option is to kick them out. But my preferred option (at least in this case) was to offer him hospitality in the form of a cup of mead in exchange for him being a good guest. There can be a level of protection in the host-guest relationship, and when it goes right, everyone leaves happy.

And he was a good guest, though he would show his displeasure by creaking his chair and flickering the lights whenever we talked about other ghosts who were assholes while trading stories. Whenever this happened, we’d reassure him we didn’t mean him and he’d calm down again.

It was a real “not all ghosts” moment.

After the After-Aftermath

So that was the first experiment with the grid. Looking back, there were a lot of mistakes and my working theory was just plain wrong. However, this is all par for the course with this kind of magical experimentation. If that’s not something you can handle—that uncertainty—then I recommend you steer clear of this work. You need to be able to think on your feet and McGyver solutions relatively quickly. And I’m not saying that to be an elitist. It’s just that there’s so much you can’t know or plan for as the first human (often) to work with a space/object/kind of magic in a thousand-or-so years.

But that uncertainty and those first experiment fuck-ups is where the next step comes in: evaluation and optimization. And that is what I’m going to talk about in the next post in this series.

Be well.

January 20, 2023January 19, 2023

Reconstructionism and Gnosis: Some “Rules”

Reconstructionism and Gnosis: The Story (Of These Blogs) So Far

In my last post, I talked about the interplay between reconstructionism and gnosis as I experience it. If it wasn’t already abundantly clear: it is my very sincere belief that both are necessary if we are to create workable and effective magical practices.

When I first got the idea for the post that spawned this series, I had three main points I wanted to communicate/dig into:

The necessity of combining reconstructionism and gnosis when attempting to create modern versions of historically attested forms of magic.
How that process can look from the inside/up-close.
The historical argument for gnosis and why gnosis cannot be ignored in matters of ritual and magic.

My original plan was for this to be a three-part series, with this second post focusing on specific examples from my own practice. Essentially it would have been a storytime blog. But the more I thought about it, the less satisfied I was with the idea of just telling stories. Storytelling is one of the oldest teaching methods known to man, but stories have to be chosen and presented carefully if they are to be effective teachers. A collection of stories would only provide the same bird’s eye view of the subject as the gold mine analogy from the first post.

I make a plan for a simple, three-part series of blog posts and the whole f**king universe laughs

A New Plan Emerges

Instead, I would prefer to provide a more in-depth perspective to accommodate as many learning styles as possible. Because if there is one thing I’ve found from talking to people about this, it’s that many find it hard to imagine this process in practice. Part of this, at least in my opinion, is likely down to how the reconstructionist movement played out in Heathen spaces in the mid-to-late 2000s. From my perspective, the research phases of the method eclipsed the experimentation and evaluation phases. So, we don’t really have that space in our communities for the experimentation and evaluation discussions (yet). Moreover, when you wade into those warm, tempting waters of experimentation and evaluation, you’re inevitably getting into experience and gnosis. To return to a point I made last week: another mistake we Heathens made as a movement/group of movements back then was to largely neglect the subject of discernment. Instead, there was a tendency to either write gnosis off as “made-up-shit” or cling to it uncritically depending on where you sat on the fake “recon” vs “woo” spectrum.

So, rather than a round of storytelling, I’m going to take one story and use it as a framework to demonstrate my process of researching/creating experiments/conducting experiments/recording/evaluating/tweaking. Along the way, I will also highlight where gnosis makes an appearance, what I consider the “tipping point,” and touch upon discernment and assessing gnosis. I will also discuss the responsibility I feel to keep my family safe from any effects of my clarting around with old magical tech as well as what I consider to be necessary safety and wellness measures while engaging in this work.

Fair warning, but I have no idea how long this section of the series will be. This thing that started out as a single post seems to be spawning “babies” faster than rabbits in spring.

I guess we’ll get to the third section when we get there.

Some “Rules” For Blending Reconstruction And Gnosis

Before beginning the story though, I would like to discuss some of the unofficial “rules” I observe when engaging in this work. Though I refer to them as “rules,” I have found them to be far more helpful than restrictive. Please do not feel obligated to adopt them for yourself, but if you do, I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

Honesty

The first rule is honesty, and this applies in several ways.

In my experience, one of the biggest sources of contention between those who lean more to reconstruction vs those who lean more to gnosis boils down to labeling sources. Or in other words: not being entirely honest about where you got your information from. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen people trying to pass off gnosis as something textually attested. This is something that irritates me too even as a weird-experimenter and haver-of-gnosis.

PSA: This is what comes up if you use the search term “rules” on Pixabay. You’re welcome.

If anything, I think it’s even more important for those of us who are experimenting with magic to be honest about our work and sources than your average Heathen. And there are two main reasons for this:

The first is that it’s both dishonest and rude to the humans you’re interacting with. Moreover, when you’re found out, it ruins the credibility of your work for those who are interested.

The second and most important reason is that you essentially deny the experiences, Powers, and relationships from which that gnosis flowed when you deny their role. It’s incredibly disrespectful to pass that other-gotten-gnosis off as coming from a book. Sure, the humans you’re interacting with might take the gnosis you’re sharing more seriously. But what of your relationships with those who helped you? If you find yourself prioritizing the approval of human strangers on the internet over your working relationships with allies, then you may want to ask yourself why.

Another area in which honesty is important pertains to interactions with other-than-human people. It’s never a good idea to lie to the kind of beings you can come across in magic. So, be careful with your words. Don’t promise anything you won’t do or give. Don’t be afraid to use direct but polite speech instead of flowery words if you suspect those flowery words might get you in trouble. And remember that silence is an option and always better than a lie. Never underestimate the abilities of the beings you may meet, as the consequences can be dire.

Finally, be as honest as you can with yourself about what you experience. Make a point of recording your experiences as soon as you are able. Because once an experiment ends, you begin the journey into the same kind of territory as crime scene witnesses. So, try to get everything down as quickly as possible and be brutally honest with yourself. Don’t be afraid to add notes like “I also got the impression of _____ but I’m not sure that actually came from interacting with (being) or was an intrusive thought/my brain elaborating as I could feel the trance weakening and it sounds similar to something I saw/heard the other day.” The mind loves to make connections and elaborate on experiences, and often we don’t even notice it. With practice though, it can get easier to spot.

So, that’s honesty.

No One Is Under Any Obligation To Accept Your Gnosis

My second “rule” is that no one is under any obligation to accept my gnosis (but they’re welcome to it if it resonates).

In my experience, this is another bone of contention when it comes to gnosis. Gnosis is a funny old thing, and especially in a group of religious movements mostly made up of ex-Christians burdened with largely unexamined Christian baggage.

I’ve written about how Christian baggage is a proverbial elephant in the room for a lot of Pagans and Heathens. Too many of us pretend that we shook off all vestiges of Christianity or the influence of growing up in a Christian-dominant society as soon as we put on a hammer and picked up a drinking horn. But unfortunately, life (and religious conversion) isn’t nearly that simple. And is it really surprising? Changing a worldview isn’t some quick, dump-water-on-head-and-call-Odin-a-bitch thing—no matter how it’s portrayed in Christian narratives. In my opinion, one of the areas in which Christian baggage has influenced modern Heathens can be found in some of the reactions to gnosis.

Now, this isn’t just something that happens to the more “recon-minded.” I think we find the same underlying concepts playing out (albeit differently) among some of the more “woo” aligned folks as well.

Ask yourself, “What does it mean to Christians when a Christian claims to have spoken to their god and received divine wisdom from him?”

It’s prophecy, right? Divine revelation that others must heed because it’s the Word of God.

This is the kind of thing wars have been fought over. Because that kind of a claim can be deeply problematic from a Christian perspective, especially if that message challenges dogma. There’s also the matter of who receives that communication and how they are viewed in the eyes of religion and society. What is their sex? Their social status? Their perceived closeness to god? The pope making divinely revealed pronouncements ex cathedra is fine, but it’s another matter if the person doing it is considered deficient or less holy in some way, or even simply too ordinary. That is when things have a tendency to get a little…spicy, shall we say?

And this is the framing that many are coming with to Heathenry and Paganism. Is it any wonder we see the reactions we do? The people with the gnosis who try to act like it’s imperative everyone goes along with it? The people who rule out the possibility of anyone interacting with a deity who doesn’t fit a certain, restrictive set of criteria? The defensiveness on all sides?

So, what do we do about it?

As someone who has a lot of gnosis, I think it’s imperative that we change the way we think about gnosis. We need to cultivate space for gnosis to simply exist without being a prophecy or divine revelation that everyone must follow. Not all communication with deities is revelation or prophecy that must be shared, or something that can only happen to certain, special people. And we do that by only considering our gnosis relevant to ourselves, listening respectfully to the gnosis of others, and retaining the right to accept or reject what you hear (preferably politely).

You Are Responsible For Keeping Others Safe!

Shockingly, conducting magical experiments based on historical sources isn’t always the safest way to pass the time. Things can happen that you had no way of foreseeing. You can find yourself experiencing unforeseen physical effects. And there’s always the chance of attracting the attention of unhelpful, opportunistic, or even hostile beings with your antics.

Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, the unforeseen consequences of your experiments can all-too-easily spread to the people around you.

Think about your roles in life and who you live with. I’m a mom; I have a little person entrusted to my care, and they tend to be attractive to a lot of beings. I’m also married, and my little family also counts a dog and a cat among us. These are all lives that I could inadvertently bring stress and harm to if I’m not careful. In addition to this, I live in a row house and my neighbors on both sides have family members who have been made vulnerable by sickness—yet more lives to take into account. And on top of that, the town where we live is bizarrely busy with the Otherworldly and generally strange activity.

(I say “bizarrely” as no one can figure out why the town where I live is so active. As an aside, it was like that before I moved in).

These are all factors that need to be taken into account when planning magical experiments. Because they don’t deserve to deal with any unwanted interlopers or other consequences from my activities, and it’s entirely down to me if they do.

“Cleanliness” is next to “Clean room” in The American Heritage College Dictionary.

So, I factor them into my planning. I build extra layers of containment and protection into my experiments. And when I really have no idea what could happen, I find the time to go and do my experiments somewhere away from other humans. I always keep a good supply of apotropaics handy. And I am careful with shutdown and clean-up.

Also important is what I do outside my experiments in my day-to-day life. I have and maintain close relationships with the deities I worship and my allies. Those relationships are often a magical practitioner’s first form of defense. I also regularly meditate, practice basic skills, and check in with my souls. And as someone whose practice is also informed by the Old English magico-medical manuscripts, I am very careful with purification practices too. All of these are intended to ensure that I am as hæl as I can be going into my experiments, that I’m not out of practice, and that I remain me.

Final Word

The “rules” I have just given are not the only ones I observe, but they are the main ones. I will introduce others as they become relevant throughout the rest of the series. It should go without saying, but whether you choose to adopt them for yourself is entirely up to you. Either way, I hope the accompanying discussion has given you plenty of food for thought.

In the next post, I’m going to take you through the first stage of the reconstructionist process: research. This is where I’ll introduce you to a fascinating Swedish site archaeologists refer to as the Götavi grid. I’ll talk about where I first found out about it; the various features of the grid, their symbolism, and other examples of those features; potential references from textual sources; and possible meanings and interpretations. If the post doesn’t run too long, I’ll also talk about my first attempt to recreate the grid and what happened.

So, until next time!

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019

“What’s Your Lineage?”

Before I crack on, did you know that I’m holding an online class about magic circles? It’s kind of like this blog post but with a whole lot more information and discussion. So if you’ve got an hour or so (it’s probably going to be between 1-2 hours) on 9/15 at around 3pm, join me for a crazed exploration of the history, purpose, and ways in which magic circles can be tweaked. Can’t make it? The class will be recorded so participants can listen later!

I’m also producing a bunch of content on Anglo-Saxon magico-medical charms and how the magical tech can be deconstructed and re-purposed over here too!

Now, on with the show!

Do You Have a Flag/Lineage?

It began like so many conversations on magical Facebook groups – admin posts link, person replies, and another person decides that it’s a great time to start something.

The “Jolene Rogers”. Im told this is the pirate flag of middle-aged white ladies everywhere!

“Oldest” story on the ‘Book, amirite?

But it was the input of a third person that I’m going to focus on here. Because it’s something that I’ve seen again and again in Pagan and magical spaces since moving to the US.

“What is your lineage?”

Whenever most people ask this question I see that Eddie Izzard sketch in my head – “Do you have a flag?”

But Eddie Izzard sketches aside, the matter of lineage is a complex one in modern Pagan and magical traditions. For many, the idea of belonging to a lineage conveys a certain legitimacy (regardless of the actual abilities of the practitioner). However, depending on which tradition you practice, the existence of lineage in the sense that it is typically understood today may be completely unnecessary.

Lineaged and Unlineaged Traditions

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that all lineages are bullshit. But lineages are far from universal to every tradition.

Take early modern English witchcraft, for example. Most of the witches in the accounts became witches because they had an encounter with an otherworldly spirit (either a fairy or elf). This encounter was usually by chance,

“Oh Pyewhacket, be a love and steal some butter and shit on old Mabel’s bed, will you?”
“No”

and could either be with the familiar spirit itself, or with fairy royalty, who then gift the witch a fairy familiar if shown proper respect. In this worldview, it was not lineage, but the familiar (which could also be a member of the dead), that made the witch.

Having said that though, there are accounts of these otherworldly familiars being passed on from witch to witch (usually family members), and that could be considered to be a lineage of sorts. However, the otherworldly figure was still probably the king (or witch!) maker in this equation as they (presumably) had to agree to this transfer. Despite many modern ideas about the Othercrowd, they have never been at our beck and call. It simply does not follow that a being who is the source of knowledge and power for a witch would not be in charge. (Wilby 60)

And sure, we could argue that these ideas were the fevered product of tortured imaginations. But as I’ve previously discussed there is a continuity to this particular shape. Alaric Hall, for example, traces the pattern of witches working with elves back to Old English sources. I would even argue that given that one of the Old English cognates of Seiðr was ‘ælfsīden’ (as well as for a bunch of other reasons), elves were an integral part of Seiðr, and that that shape continued into the early modern period.

Kinda makes you look at that story of Freyja as the priestess of dead-Freyr’s mound cult in the Ynglinga saga a little differently, right? If ever there was an Eliade-esque “paradigmatic fix point” for this particular paradigm, that would likely be it.

But none of that takes from the fact that there are lineaged traditions in the world. Moreover, there are a lot of benefits (not to mention safety nets) from being a part of a lineaged tradition that has its shit together.
Notice that caveat there?

Because let’s not try to pretend here – some lineaged traditions are clusterfucks that just happened to have been started because (often) one person didn’t like something long-established about an actual lineage and decided to set up their own tree house. That’s not to say that all breakaway lineaged traditions are shit though. Plenty of breakaway lineages turn into actual lineages, but some…yeah.

Legitimate lineages (however they’re judged) can be excellent for a number of reasons though. Because not only do you have access to a far more systematic way of learning, but you also have the safety nets of more experienced elders as well as the lineage itself. If you are interested in a tradition that has lineages then you should absolutely do the work and enter in the correct way. In some cases, it can actually be dangerous to you if you don’t.
For those of you who are trying to live that early modern life though, keep flashing your sweet fairy/elf bait asses (and good luck)!

Okay, I was joking about the ‘fairy bait’ bit.

(Maybe. Just try to be the right kind of bait, okay?)

Lineage and College Degrees

In some ways, the question “What is your lineage?” (especially in groups of mixed practitioners who come from both lineaged and non-lineaged traditions) feels symptomatic of a far greater social issue in the US. Now I’m not going to get all Mike Rowe on you all here, but I feel like the obsession over college degrees for any old crap has kind of carried over into how we perceive magical capacity in others too.

It was one of the thing that first struck me when I moved to my current area. Where I’d lived before didn’t really have much of a magical community. But where I am now is like a fucking soap opera (possibly addictive horror series) with that shit.

When I first moved here, I was excited to come across so many other

“I got my completely unaccredited qualification! YAY!”

practitioners. But soon, I was relegated to some kind of ‘discard pile’ when it became clear that I didn’t have any lineage they cared about. Nor was I interested in learning from the main teachers in the area (a seemingly necessary ‘qualification’ if one is to be taken seriously regardless of actual ability). They just weren’t selling what I wanted, and frankly some of it felt ‘icky’ and even corrupted to me.

There’s a whole lot more I could say here, but I’m not going to. I think that was enough to illustrate my point. Despite my lack of lineage or connection to local big names though, I’ve somehow become the person people come to when things aren’t just getting bad, but really bad.

I’ve found myself thinking about this curious situation quite a lot over the years too. I’ve found so many talented people in my area who don’t have the qualifications people are looking for, and who get completely overlooked if they try to sell their services despite their talent. For example, I have a friend who is ridiculously talented – especially with the dead – and she has been “negged” by people who just happen to be better known or “qualified”. And part of it reminds me of how some jobs now require a bachelor’s degree despite never needing them before.

But part of it is also undoubtedly down to competition and the psychology of buying services. Services are always a greater risk to a customer than products. It’s far easier to see the quality of a product than a service before purchase. So we’ve evolved ways of making the customer feel better – more certain – when buying a service. (Incidentally, this is where “the customer is always right” comes from.) This is especially necessary for those who sell “less tangible” services, and especially those that go against the consensus (such as spell work, healing work, or exorcisms).

See what I’m saying?

In these cases, belonging to a lineage or having qualifications from the “right” teacher can give a customer reassurance (I say “right” here because I think the very concept of “right teacher”, especially in the context of a whole geographical area, is always debatable).

A Big Dog Party

Now I’m not saying that lineage is bad here, because it can be an overwhelmingly positive thing in a practitioner’s life. And before anyone says “oh she’s just bitter because she doesn’t have a lineage”, I do. (No I’m not telling any of you what it is because frankly it’s no one’s business but my own and that of those in my lineage).

What I’m saying here is that I can see both sides of the coin.

I’ve been that non-lineaged witch who gained a familiar through a chance encounter, and I’m now in a lineage and kicking names and taking ass there too (hopefully – I just wanted a chance to use that quote).

All I’m saying is that there should be space for both.

We’re a modern movement, but we’re massively diverse. Some of our traditions are lineaged and some not, and we need to respect those differences. Because at the end of the day, it’s far more important that we get off the fucking sofa and actually do.

(Just don’t do lineaged stuff if you’re not in the lineage).

And yes, that final subheading was from Dr Seuss ‘Go, Dog. Go!’

References

Hall, Alaric – Elves in Anglo-Saxon England
Wilby, Emma – Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits

August 22, 2019August 22, 2019

The Land as Witchcraft Teacher

For today’s blog, I’d like to tell you the story of how I learned witchcraft, and some of the best lessons I learned from my first teacher.

Like many people who end up getting into witchcraft, I felt a draw to all things witchy. Most importantly though, the weird and otherworldly was also drawn to me. Which is good, because witchcraft without the dead and/or Other is just a party for one.

I grew up in a town on the edge of the West Pennine Moors in Lancashire, England, and I was the weird kid everyone else came to ask about getting the “power of Manon” when the movie The Craft came out.

When I was first starting out at the (stereotypical) age of thirteen, our local library boasted only a couple of books on witchcraft. One was The Witches’ Bible and absolutely out of bounds because I knew the librarians would call your parents for taking it out on account of all the photos of naked Janet Farrar. The other was Z Budapest’s The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, and as it had no photos of naked people or overtly witchy imagery (at least on the cover), this made it the perfect candidate for withdrawal.

Now, I realize that Z Budapest is a TERFY dumpster fire, and I’m not promoting her in any way. Even then, her work wasn’t to my taste and there wasn’t really any discussion about transfolx to even have the language to describe a TERF. In my backwards hometown in the 90s, dumpster fire or not, she was about the only game in town.

But while Z Budapest’s book may have taught me how to cast my first circle, the moors were my real teacher.

My First Teacher in the Craft: The Moors

teacher - moorland — Wild, heather-covered moorland with clouds dropping to kiss the earth

The moors where I grew up are a wild place, windswept and barren with rocks littered across the heather and grass like broken bones. It’s a place where the clouds meet the land and modern people walk on ancient ruins. And it’s as dangerous as it is beautiful.

When the mists drop and you can’t see further than a couple of feet, it’s easy to get lost. The landscape is treacherous, and the weather can go from snowy to warm sunshine within the space of a half hour. Like Gullveig, the moors of my home county have burned and been reborn. Unlike Gullveig though, she’s performed this trick more than just the three times that Gullveig did.

“Gullveig” being reborn after yet another fire.

Then there are the bogs – the reason why a lot of people tend to stick to the paths.

But for all the danger and creepy stories, I loved them and would spend hours in the wild places up on the tops away from the paths with my little dog.

Some of my first rituals were worked up on those moors, and I’ve seen things up there that few would believe.

There I learned to map the hidden dimensions of a landscape, committing to memory all the places where the Good Folk lived when I found them, and building up relationships as I went. teacher - burial mound

There I learned to sit out on burial mounds.

There I learned to enjoy my own company and be happy observing the shadows of the clouds moving over the valleys below.

There I learned that no matter how badass you think yourself, some places are still best avoided after dark.

Teacher, Counselor, Friend

I haven’t had many teachers during my time, but the best teachers I’ve known happen to also have been friends who give good counsel.

When times were hard, I would take my pain and pound it into the earth through the bottom of my boots. Then (usually at the top of a hill), I would fall to the ground to thank the hills when the knots around my heart lifted.

Other times I’d bring her my magical problems, and I’d think about them as I walked until I happened upon the perfect piece of materia magica to work into a spell. Soon I was bringing back things like sheep skulls and working the teeth into amulets. It didn’t matter what she threw me either. When I got the sense that I was supposed to use a thing, I instinctively knew what to do with it.

From there, I began to think about questions I needed an answer to, and I would pick up nine straight (ish) sticks at random as I walked. Then when I had

my nine, I’d hold them between my hands to whisper my question before casting them to be read as runes.

At some point though, I began to think about the ‘why’. Why did she throw me those things and why did they work for what I needed to do? Why did I work in that way when working those spells and why did that work?

This is how one of my greatest magical interests was born – deconstructing magical workings in order to discover the underlying “mechanics”. And that kids, is how I got started taking historical accounts of magical workings and trying them out.

The Four Main Lessons my Moorland Teacher Taught

When you learn witchcraft from a land, much of it is going to be heavily localized and possibly even useless outside of that land. But the moors taught me four main transferable lessons that have stood me in good stead no matter where I’ve been.

1. Take a Place as You Find It

The first lesson is one that embraces impermanence. Places change, as do the beings that inhabit them. And a place and its inhabitants may be one way on one day, and completely different on another day. Even if you’ve been somewhere before, never assume that a place is going to be or feel the same when you go back there. Keep on top of your basic witchy skills, and always have your apotropaics and best manners to hand.

2. Avoid a Feeling of Ownership

This is a big one, and it’s something we humans (at least in Anglophone culture) generally suck at anyway. This idea of ownership of land (and all the non-human people on it) goes to the animism thing all the cool kids are talking about. And if we’re being real, as a group we’re still pretty crap at that there animism. I mean, how many of us actually respect the agency of non-human persons? How many people still see them as basically being some twee little vending machines for favors (in exchange for some pretty subpar offerings)?

(Clearly I’m using “us” in the macro sense here. I’m referring to the modern Pagan movement as a whole, so hold your knickers, Beryl!)

The truth is, we all come from a culture obsessed with individualism. A culture in which selfishness and cruelty are lauded as a twisted form of morality – and that kind of fucks us when it comes to the animism thing. Because when everything is already about you and you getting yours, that puts you on a terrible footing for interacting with the not-you. But when you bring a sense of ownership into the equation (of both the land and by extension the sentient beings who also live there)?

I mean hell, we can’t even get it right with other humans. Feeling a sense of ownership over anyone or anyland is one of the first paving stones on the road to hell.

And this is not me saying ‘don’t buy property’ or that I’m coming to take your toothbrushes and make you use some communal, opossum-managed toothbrush (holy shit but I love opossums). No. Own on paper if you need to, but recognize that it’s just a formality for the stupid humans. Instead work to become a part of your land and grow the understanding of belonging to in your heart.

3. Try to Figure out Your Place in the Big Picture

Speaking of belonging to – this mindset sets you up to contextualize yourself within the bigger picture of the place you inhabit. You’re no longer an individual over but cohabiting with. Where are you in your “neighborhood”? Who do you need to avoid pissing off and who do you need to give a little more care and attention to?

If you consider yourself an animist, try putting yourself in the shoes (or roots) of a tree or plant in your community of lives. What do they experience on a daily basis? Who do they interact with the most? What problems do they have with their nearest neighbors? How do you help them (or harm them)?

An interesting thought exercise, no?

Every Land has its Stories and You Should Learn Them

When we were kids, we passed stories like schoolkids pass nits. Stories about

“Yes officer, I believe it was Granny Greenteeth, in the tarn, with some kind of eldritch magic.”

Granny Greenteeth, “Bannister Dolls” (don’t ask), black dogs, ghosts, and the occasional boggart tale all ran round our groups. Especially on the dark nights when we couldn’t find anything really to do but lurk on the streets and tell each other creepy stories (in winter it’s usually getting dark by four in the afternoon where I’m from).

But these stories are important because they’re what help you to fill out the hidden dimensions of a land when you first arrive. This is how you build your witchy map of a place and figure out where to start attempting to build relationships. Not only that, but they can also give you clues as to how to survive should you encounter some of the nastier parts of the local unseen.

For example, I now live in Maryland. There is an alleged cryptid here called the Snallygaster who is apparently the mortal enemy of the Dwayyo – a kind of huge, monstrous, wolf-like being. I’ve also noticed some interesting parallels between some of the circumstances surrounding the mysterious National Park disappearances and Jinn lore, and I know that wolves are also associated with causing Jinn to vanish. So now I include ground down (legally obtained) wolf bones in the black salt I make to carry in my bag of tricks.
See what I mean?

August 9, 2019

AMA Ancestor Veneration

Ancestor Veneration and Dead, Oh My!

A while ago on my personal Facebook, I hosted an AMA on Ancestor veneration. I felt like I had come to the end of what I wanted to talk about in my series of posts on ancestors, but that some kind of Q&A was needed to finish the series off.

Admittedly, I could have thrown the questions to a wider audience. But what the people on my friends list threw me was more than enough. I’m a busy person, and soon to get busier with some of the projects that I’m getting set up in the pipeline (I’ll have some news on some of that soon). There’s no way I would have had time to answer them all if I got a deluge! As you will see though, the questions I did end up with cover a lot of ground.

The Questions

What are your thoughts on time between being deceased and being an ancestor? At what point does that transition happen? Or is it instantaneous? Is there something that has to be done from a Pagan or Magical perspective to help them make the shift from deceased to ancestor?

Oh I have so many thoughts.

One of the comforts of belonging to an established tradition is that the answers to questions like this are far clearer. You have the supports of tradition and everything that entails. However, when it comes to modern Pagans, Heathens, and Witches, we kind of have to pick our own way through this landscape. These are questions that we’ll be facing a lot more frequently too as time goes on. More people are aging and dying within neopagan traditions, and other neopagans are trying to find ways to maintain the connection between living and dead.

So what can we do?

I’ve both thought about and worked with this a lot with losses within my own family. As is the case with seemingly everything for me nowadays though, it all boils down to story and communication, and these elements play out in all my rituals interacting with the dead regardless of whether or not they’re simply dead or an actual ancestor. When I sing the dead forth, I sing them through a storied landscape that returns them to now. Then when I send them back or guide them to where they need to go, I sing them through other landscapes depending on what I know of the beliefs – the stories they held to in life.

When my uncle died for example, I created rituals that painted the story of him making his way to ancestral halls and being received by the ancestors. In my prayers, I created stories of him being healed and the pain and memories of his illness and death being sloughed away. In my dreams, I saw him being reborn and performed divination to see what it had to say on the matter. There is no ancestralization for him, at least not in my rituals, as I believe he is reborn in the world somewhere in my family.

To put it simply, I think we need to see this as a kind of interactive process. One in which we guide, heal, and elevate with ritual story, and then look for communication to confirm what is or isn’t happening before adjusting our efforts accordingly.

What are the dangers of ancestor work?

It depends on what you mean by dangers! Work with ancestors that dredge up hurtful things and there’s one kind of danger there. Work too closely with the angry dead who want to hurt you, and there’s another. Oppression, possession, ill luck, sickness – all of these things can come from working too closely with the angry and vengeful dead regardless of family relationship.

Which brings me handily to the next question.

Are you obligated to abusive family members?

One of the worst things about abuse from family members is that it’s not supposed to happen. It’s horribly common, but when you think about what a family is supposed to be in all the stories we tell about them, family isn’t supposed to hurt family.

Yet it happens, and unfortunately death doesn’t erase the asshole in a person.

Moreover, when you consider the fundamental premise of ancestor veneration: that the ancestral dead can affect our lives for good or ill, this matter becomes a lot worse. Does that mean you need to spend decades trying to suck up to someone who hurt you deeply while in life and fix them?

No.

But it does mean that you need to take it into consideration that their ill probably didn’t end with their last breath and take measures to protect yourself and your loved ones from them. Sometimes, other ancestors can help with this. But other times, you need to crack out some more hardcore measures. The important thing though is that you figure out the deal with them and their continued effect on your life. Because ignoring them isn’t good when they’re disembodied and potentially have greater access.

The difference between specific ancestors and the ancestral whole…?

This is a really good question and one that I think about a lot. I mean, just what was the process for individual ancestors becoming part of collectives such as Matronae? (If that’s the question being asked here?) I honestly don’t know. But whenever I’ve seen the dead as a collective, they usually take the form of a large column of light stretching either vertically or horizontally depending on the space and setting. Again UPG, but I’ve seen individual ancestors step out of that column before now to speak to me, and these are usually “big” spirits in some way. There are a few that I consider ancestral guides of a sort that appear to me in that way.

Are there different ways you approach the ancestors that are “long dead” (thousands of years ago), the ancestors that are “recently dead” (in the last few hundred years), and the actual people you knew in life who have died? Do you venerate them differently? Do they get different offerings or different kinds of space in your magical working? How do you ally with the different groups.

Absolutely!! For example, I sing different stories when calling to the ancient dead than I do the more recent. I tend to go off what I know of their likely beliefs in life out of respect for them when creating these songs. But regardless of era, if I’m actually looking to bring them here (as opposed to just pray), I tend to make use of what I call intermediary technologies (I wrote a paper about that very thing that you can read here). I also use circles (which in this case also serves the purpose of recreating the burial mound) for protection (my family’s, not my own).

The long dead generally don’t carry the same sentiment towards me as the more recent (for the good and bad of that), so I tend to approach them with more formality and less familiarity. With dead I have known, I offer things I know they liked in life, but with older dead I go with more universal items: food, grain, sweet things, water, and alcohol (though I know that’s controversial in some traditions).

And, relevant to my personal interests right now, what do you do when someone from the Long Dead category volunteers themselves as an ancestral ally or helping spirit, in exchange for reciprocal work of course?

It depends on the long dead person in question and what they hope to get out of it. I mean, just because some long dead person pops up doesn’t mean I’m going to jump into a relationship with them! You need to take time with these things – wine them and dine them. No, just kidding. But you do need to vet them and make sure they’re not just some asshole that’s just looking to gain access to you for whatever godsforsaken reason. You also need to gain assurances and be super careful with any oaths you make. Also: “my long dead bae told me to do it” doesn’t really stand up well in court.

What’s your opinion on what or who constitutes an ancestor? Blood? Adoption? Initiation? Affinity? Other things? And do you maintain relationships differently depending on lineage/connection?

Because of a little thing called the Identical Ancestors Point/isopoint, if you go back far enough, every human alive before a certain date (around 5000-15000 years ago) is an ancestor. (Sorry, racists. Not.) If you have European ancestry, every human alive in the tenth century who had descendants that survived is your ancestor. (Congratulations, Charlemagne and every other famous fucker that had crotch spawn that survived is your ancestor!) So depending on how far back you’re talking, those people may technically be blood ancestors anyway.

However, blood does not always make a family, and humans have adopted, fostered, and fucked our way into bonds with each other since we first started to homo-sapien-it-up. If you were adopted or initiated into a group, you are part of that family. You share ancestors despite the lack of (more recent?) blood.

As for affinity and “other things”, this is most definitely where we move out of ancestor veneration and more into simply working with the dead. It almost feels like people feel the need for permission here and that calling it ‘ancestor veneration’ in a sense provides that veneer of respectability that “necromancy” just doesn’t.

But you can work with and create relationships with the dead you have affinity and “other things” for. They can be no less beloved, but at best they’re more like friends and teachers who just happen to be dead than ancestors.

As always though, be sure to observe common sense protection and purification practices when initiating these relationships and until they’ve proven themselves to you (keep the purifications up, it’s never bad when working with the dead in any capacity, especially if physical remains are involved).

RIP Blog Post Series

Well that’s that for that series! RIP posts, and may all who necromance you from the cyber grave-field benefit from what you have to say.

I hope these Q&As were helpful, and perhaps helped to clear up some disconnects for a few folks. I also encourage you to read my paper ‘Waking the Dead’ to find out more about those intermediary technologies I mentioned before. It’s focused on Old Norse technologies, but some comparisons with Ancient Greek practices are also made.

But until the next post, stay necromantic, my friends!

April 4, 2019April 4, 2019

Witch Wars: Minimizing the Damage

Which Witch War?

There are two kinds of “witch wars” in the Pagan world, and most of the time, it’s the gossipy, bitchy, war-of-words kind that is the most common. This blog

witch wars - praying skeleton — “Oh West Virginia Jesus, please don’t let me be misunderstood!”

post isn’t about that – largely because I suck at them. I just don’t have much investment in the kind of social fuckery that allows an actual honest-to-West-Virginia-Jeebus negative social campaign to form. In short, I’m not the droid your looking for when it comes to advice for surviving a social shit storm (but this droid might be helpful, and also this).

I am however, the droid that can give you some helpful tips on the second kind of witch war: the magical kind.

An Evil of Ego

To put it simply, this kind of witch war is usually an utter clusterfuck. Like the social shit storm variety, it usually comes about because one person gets their pants in a twist over some ego-related matter. They can come about quickly, or they sort of ferment over time. In my experience of these slow wars, you usually have about 2-3 years of fermentation punctuated by relatively minor periods of being poked at before hostilities fully escalate.

The magical witch war can be soul-destroying, and can wreck your whole life in otherwise unbelievable ways. This is especially the case if you take the position that this shit just doesn’t really happen and so are perhaps not as vigilant as you should be. Moreover, if the attack is particularly bad, the aftermath can be quite difficult and take some serious recovery time .

Hands down the best way to deal with this kind of witch war though, is to avoid it in the first place.

But how can you avoid something that hasn’t (hopefully) happened yet? The simple answer is that you can’t. But there are some relatively easy precautions you can take to reduce both access and effectiveness that go beyond the usual wards and shielding.

Reciprocal relationships

One of your most important lines of defense against nastiness, is the reciprocal relationships that you nurture and maintain with your numinous powers. Sometimes it may be gods who help you, and sometimes Fair Folk. However, mostly it’s going to be ancestors and house spirits that do the bulk of the heavy-lifting here, so these are the relationships you really need to cultivate.

That’s not to say that the gods and Fair Folk wouldn’t get involved though, or that it isn’t worth taking the time to develop reciprocal relationships with them too. It’s just that they have less reason to be involved than the aforementioned groups, and unless there are already signs that you have their favor, their prices tend to be much steeper.

When you have good reciprocal relationships with your ancestors and house spirits, detecting, diagnosing, and dealing with magical attacks become much easier. Because when you have those relationships, you can get a lot done by simply calling to them with some offerings and checking in. I recommend checking in in this way on a weekly basis (at least).

Cleanliness

This is where I tell you to clean your house! No really, regular cleaning is one of the best steps you can take to create a layer of protection from some major whammy.

You see, sometimes witch wars involve sending asshole spirits to mess with you, and those asshole spirits tend to gravitate to the shitty, cluttered areas of your home like mosquitoes do to buckets of water. (This is pretty much why paranormal teams get people to clean up as part of the solution.)

Another reason why cleaning is an important activity (you know, aside from regular old health, hygiene, and decency), is that if you are in the slow moving kind of war, then you may find items planted in your home that come with…extra ‘gifts’ (in the German sense of the word). Regular cleaning keeps you familiar with what’s in your home and what doesn’t belong.

Lastly, and most importantly, there are layers of protection you can build into your cleaning regime. You can clean with apotropaic herbs and washes (especially if you make your own cleaning supplies like I do), and you can get into the habit of regularly fumigating your home to cleanse it. This helps to prevent a build up of magical nastiness over time, which is useful all the time, but invaluable if you ever end up having the misfortune of dealing with a protracted campaign.

To Gift is to Connect

One of the worst things about witch wars, is that most of the people you are likely to end up in magical altercations with, will have likely started out as friends. They are usually the people you’ve “talked shop” with, considered working with, or maybe even worked with. This is part of why your slow-moving witch wars are like car wrecks that you can see coming in the distance – you can see the wreck coming, but there’s also this desire to try and prevent it if you can. I don’t mean to be the plot spoiler here, but most of the time you really can’t. Because it’s usually not about you or your friendship, but simple ego and dominance, and that’s an ill that lies solely within the person that starts the war.

But in those early days of friendship before you get to know a person, it can be really easy to gift freely. However, until you know how things are going to roll out (or oaths are in place), it’s important to be careful with both what you gift, and also what you accept.

To give or receive a gift is an act of trust, especially among magical practitioners. Gifting connects and provides either leverage, or a way into someone’s life (the Trojan horse principle). Because when you gift – especially if that gift is something you made or have had for a long time – you’re essentially giving them something they can use to connect you to them in a spell. Alternatively, the gifts you accept can come with some added…”extras” that can make for some really unpleasant times.

So be careful who you give gifts to, and what presents you accept from others. If you really want to give gifts in those early stages of friendship, opt for gifting by Amazon or another online service. They still get the gift, but none of the “you” to leverage.

As an aside, I always learned to never accept salt from another witch. I don’t remember where I learned that now (it was a good two decades ago now), but it’s a taboo I’ve kept to. Your mileage may vary.

Personal Concerns

Even worse than a gift though, is when a rival gains something of you. The term “personal concerns” is quite delicate-sounding for what is being referred to here, but basically, it’s your hair, nails, blood etc. Any enemy practitioner (or practitioner yet to out themselves as an enemy) that gets access to any of these things, gains the keys to the kingdom. There is so much more that they can do to you with this stuff- trust me on this. Because there was this one fun time and it literally nearly fucking killed me.

Protecting your personal concerns requires both cleanliness and diligence. Don’t leave hair brushes, toothbrushes, or anything else with your hair lying around anywhere where any guests can get to them. Be extra careful with sharp objects when others are around. If you cut yourself, pocket any tissues you use to staunch bleeding and take them home. Count them as you pocket them and keep track. Try to wash away any blood spilled with whatever is to hand. Got flyaway hair? Tie it up or cover it while meeting with new folks. Get the idea?

Basically, adopt the level of paranoia a hated Roman emperor would have found admirable.

Final Words

Witch wars of this variety are thankfully relatively rare, and it can be all too easy to become a little too paranoid. There is a balance to be had here, and in the next post I’m going to discuss some of the things you can look at to try and discern whether or not someone is working against you.

But for now – and most importantly – don’t give this topic too much space in your head. Stray thoughts can be dangerous things for people who use their emotions, visualizations, and will to change reality.

June 13, 2016January 10, 2018

Re: The Otherworld Is Bleeding Through

Re: The Otherworld is Bleeding Through

On the 9^th of June, Patheos blogger John Beckett wrote that the Otherworld is ‘bleeding through’, and that even though his awareness of this is a more recent thing, he’s of the opinion this has been going on for longer.

Although that might sound like crazy talk (after all, how many people have believed themselves to be living in pivotal times?), it’s no surprise to the people that know me that I agree with John.

I would say it’s been going on for a while – years even. Back then I was foolish enough to email a famous paranormal investigator for their input, to see if they’d noticed a rise in cases, but as I wasn’t mailing about a potential opportunity for publicity or financial gain, I was called ‘unprofessional’ and sent on my way. Back then it felt more like flood and ebb, there would be periods of crazy activity and periods of relative calm – or at least it did to me. It was around late August last year though when things really ramped up. After asking friends on Facebook if they were noticing or experiencing anything, and receiving affirmative replies from people who typically don’t experience the strange, I really began to take notice.

Not that I didn’t take notice before, but generally when the people who don’t usually get that kind of thing happen to them start to get that, well, it’s far more compelling than when people like myself (for whom these things tend to be ten a penny) get them.

Friends told me of white dog apparitions that lurked at the edges of the woods, of dreams of the dead that felt far more prescient than dream, and premonitions that came to pass. As time has gone on since then, more ‘woo’ friends have told me of hauntings returning that hadn’t haunted for years, of the return of spirits lain years before by exorcism, and of sighting the Slúa of all things.

At first I worried about what could be going on. I ritualized and performed divination after divination, and kept getting the same message back. That the ‘Other’ was now here, that they were rising up and coming back, and couldn’t be happier about it. This was to be our new normal.

In this, John Beckett and I are in agreement. Curiously, this is something the Fairyist survey seems to also be bearing out in that the sightings that people are reporting – at least of the feeorin – are far more in keeping with the view of centuries past rather than more modern ideas of fairies.

In January I wrote my posts about upping our collective game as witches, pagans, ritualists, or whatever sweet label we go by. This is a big part of why I wrote that post, because in spite of all the fake being sold as real that flies around, the real shit is there too – and really *close*. Regardless of whether this situation is temporary or permanent (I’ve seen some debate on that) though, we need to be bringing our A-game because things have the potential to get far more real, far more quickly than before.

Even outside of the more dramatic encounters, on a more day to day level, the sensitive people in our communities are already suffering in this current climate – that’s if the communities my friends are involved in are anything to go by. I’m seeing and hearing about a lot of sleeplessness and nervous issues cropping up right now among many, and I’d like to address some tools for dealing with this.

Right now, I would say that we need our gods, and to honor the reciprocal relationships we keep with the beings we keep them with. People looked to the gods for order and keeping the destructive forces outside of the inner yard, I would say that that’s a good thing all the time, not just when woo woo shit is going wild.

We need to make sure we ground and center often, and if you don’t know how to do that, now is the time to learn. We also need to work on our protections, to getting them down so they’re automatic – preferably tied to some kind of physical action so that when things get overwhelming, the muscle memory can take over and pull you back where you need to be. Muscle memory is powerful and often overrides emotional and/or mental states. We need to come up with back up plans for whenever we’re working for the ‘just in case’, and take hard looks at our liturgy to make sure we’re being smart with our words too (I’ll take a look at this in a future blog post, I think). Words in sacred space have weight and one can invite a whole host of trouble when words are used without thought.

We need to dust off the old tales and charms. Folktales can often provide us clues and ways to interact with or survive interaction with the Otherworld. Most of the etiquette that you see going around about how to interact with the feeorin (fae) for example, comes from these folktales; simple things like not thanking them, calling them honorific names such as ‘The Gentry’, or not letting them know that you can see them come from these stories. The old charms are often the most effective too. Iron carried upon the person or under the pillow can lead to more peaceful nights and costs far less in the long term than melatonin after the initial outlay. Shoes can be utilized as ‘spirit traps’, hung on bedposts, or stuffed on ledges up chimneys. Rowan crosses bound with red thread can protect against the feeorin, salt can be poured over thresholds, and multiple types of herb can be hung/burned/sprinkled in the home to clear or protect.

Admittedly, some of the old practices can be downright dangerous (probably even illegal nowadays), especially to Otherworld - Troll Cross children, but can be made safe with some adaptation. For example, the opened iron scissors hung over a crib can easily be a forged iron troll cross (or anything else that’s iron and not sharp) stuffed under the mattress of the child’s bed (or hung on the wall if the child is old enough), and we really don’t need to go back to testing our children to make sure they’re not changelings (by incidentally torturing or killing them).

But most importantly, we need our human tribes, our families, our friends, and our trusted people. We need to look after each other, because while things may not get horrific, we may be in for a bumpy ride while we adjust.