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Being A Brokeass Witch In The Modern World

It can be expensive being a witch, especially if you work with more historic forms of magic. Materia magica and tools like goat fat, spindles, and the bodies of hanged men just aren’t as readily available nowadays as they were for our forebears. There is no walking to the gibbet at the crossroads to

brokeass witches - gibbet — Foraging was so much better back in the day.

harvest goodness knows what from some hanged criminal for us, comparatively few people raise their own animals, and unless you’re the kind of person to hang out at your local sheep and wool festival, you probably also don’t have a spindle.

Or a cauldron.

Or a pitchfork.

And depending on where you live, your foraging options might be limited when it comes to traditional European witch herbs anyway.

So what’s a brokeass witch to do when a working or form of magic requires materia magica and tools that are prohibitively expensive?

Well, you could try out the following hacks.

1. Keep An Inventory

The first and easiest cost-saving activity that any witch can do is take an inventory of the magical supplies that are already in stock. As a group, we tend towards being pack-rats. We accumulate herbs, rocks, journals, random bones and raccoon dick bones as we practice, and it becomes all too easy to lose track of what we have. So if you’re looking to cut the cost of your craft, you need to reduce the risk of buying unneeded items, and that is where your inventory comes in.

Go through your stuff, make a list, keep the list somewhere easy to see, and refer to it when making your nefarious, magical plans.

2. Cost It Out

When you have a specific working in mind, take the time to research the cost of supplies. Shop around, fill shopping baskets on random sites and see what totals you get. Sometimes things will work out much cheaper than you initially expected and are actually affordable with a bit of budgeting work. Conversely, things may turn out to be a whole lot more expensive than you thought, so it’s good to cost things out to avoid any nasty surprises.

3. Figure Out Substitutions (And Make A Purist Cry)

In some cases, substituting some tools or ingredients can make things a little more doable financially. However, you need to be careful with any substitutions you make. After all, there’s a certain logic to magical workings, and some of that logic has pretty deep roots.

But while it’s clearly beyond the scope of this listicle subsection to teach how to ‘read’ and deconstruct magical workings in this way, I can give you a down and dirty hack to at least get you thinking about it.

Over the years, I’ve found that the easiest way to think about magic is in terms of story; and leveraging stories in order to change my own story, and the story of others. From an animist perspective, everything has backstory, and these backstories are what build the greater story-arc that you form when you create a spell. So the next time you look at a spell (or consider creating your own spell), try to think of it like a movie in a series of movies and deconstruct the various plots. Those bits where you find yourself thinking “Oooh wouldn’t it have been cool if (character name) did that instead of (character name)” are where you can possibly make some decent substitutions.

Just bear in mind that some spirits care a hell of a lot more about substitutions than others. I have done workings with some real sticklers, and workings with other spirits who are fine with you using whatever you have. So if it doubt, perform divination. Sometimes you can get some leeway from promising better when you’re doing better.

4. Make Your Own (Tools) if Possible

There can be a lot of magical and economic benefits to making your own tools. Because aside from the (usually) cheaper cost (again, cost this out first) of making your own tools, there is the added benefit of being able to birth your own tools into the world. You get to be there at the point of creation, and begin their stories. Yes, you get to be momma to some sketchy knives, spindles, staffs, and whatever the fuck else you need to produce in order to get on down with your magical selves.

Go have some magical tool kids! It’s like the only time you get to reproduce prolifically while poor without society looking down on you.

There’s also a certain niche value there too. I mean, no one else will have a table of art quite as shitty-looking as yours (or mine…speaking from experience here).

Table of “art”. Ha!

It’s artisanal, not shit.

5. Look For ‘Free’ Or Thrift

Finally, despite our lack of early modern witchy resources (oh, the irony), there’s still a lot to be said for foraging locally, especially if you can figure out some decent substitutions in your local plant life. Thrift stores can also be gold

brokeass witches - cauldron — This would be free if you stole it. But that’s not the kind of ‘free’ I mean here. Stealing is bad, m’kay!

mines for witches in need of tools, and you can still observe planetary timing in your purchases! Knives, candle holders, offering dishes, and fireproof bowls are not all that hard to find in a lot of thrift stores.

Of course, the only downside here is that you’ll probably never know the backstory on those tools, but can you ever really say that about any tools bought from local occult stores? So what if that knife you picked up was used by a little old lady called “Evelyn” to eviscerate her Canasta nemesis? Free spirits, bonus.

Final Words

Witchcraft has changed a lot since the days of our early modern counterparts, and so has poverty. However, one thing that has not changed is that witchcraft was, and still remains, the tool of the poor and marginalized.

So regardless of what you end up missing, or the cool shit you don’t get to own, just know this: By being poor as crap, you’re continuing a true witchcraft tradition. Like I said, witchcraft has always been the tool of the downtrodden, and most of those were also poor as crap. Poverty just looked different then. But don’t forget, it’s your economic counterparts (give or take a few hundred years) that the folks who can afford all the swank stuff are trying to emulate.

Yay, validity!

Oh look, it’s another PSA (and all in the same week)!! This time my friends, I’d like to ask you all how you’re feeling. So how are things?

You see I’m asking because I’ve noticed that a fair few people seem to be either a little overwrought and on edge, or feeling completely drained at the moment. It’s beginning to look a little bit like people are feeling somewhat overloaded.

Signs of Overload

We’ve all been to places where we’ve felt a bit off, right? Or felt the change in subtle energies with the waxing and waning of the moon? This is because we humans, even those of us who try to cling to the physical, tend to react to the energy in our environments. And there are any number of environmental factors that can kick up the energy in a place and leave you feeling…off. (This is what I mean by “overload”.)

Some of the most common environmental factors that lead to this are things like “psychic impressions” left by horrid historical events; the influence of celestial bodies (as the aforementioned example of the lunar cycle); the time of year (liminal points especially); strong emotions from other humans; and especially strong emotions from other humans en masse. Of course, the degree to which these things will affect you very much depends on your personal level of sensitivity, and the most sensitive and empathic typically themselves more acutely affected than others.

If this is you, you may find yourself feeling on edge or particularly emotional (when you have no discernible reason to be so). You may also feel as though there are too many things going on, a sensation like you’re somehow running out of time, or like you just can’t settle. Conversely, you may feel inexplicably exhausted and drained (likely from the effort of trying to process the overload). And while we’re on the subject, how are you sleeping? Because if you’re on the “inexplicably antsy” end of the spectrum, I’m betting you’re also not sleeping for shit either – at least not without help.

Here is where self-care comes in. So what kind of self-care can you practice when the causes are from more subtle sources?

Discernment

Your first step is to take a deep breath and try to figure out what’s going on. The question you need to ask yourself here is if these emotions are really yours (ie intrinsic to you), or if you are reacting to something external.

In some cases, this is simple. For example, if you have only just started to feel like this after entering an environment but feel fine when you leave, then that can be a pretty clear indicator that the cause was external. However in other cases, this is where self-knowledge comes in and knowing the shape of your own thoughts. For those of you who regularly practice meditation, this is probably relatively easy for you. For those of you who aren’t there yet though, this is where grounding and centering can be helpful.

Grounding and Centering

From the perspective of self-care, or “psychic first aid” (or whatever the hell else you want to call it), grounding allows you to rid yourself of excess energy, and centering helps you to restore your balance. If you suspect overload and are not sure if what you are experiencing is external or not then try grounding and centering. It’s a great way of shifting that excess energy into the earth, giving you the space you need to take stock and figure out your next move.

Feel better now? Then the cause was likely external.
Feel about the same? You need to look within.

Many forms of grounding and centering involve some kind of tree visualization, during which the person envisions themselves as a tree with roots sinking down into the earth and branches reaching up to the heavens. However, if you’re not really in a place where you can do that because you’re just too wired, I have a kickass alternative that a friend of mine came up that is great for kinesthetic types (thanks Becky!).

Becky’s method is based on the realization that the iron in our bodies is a match for the iron within the earth, and the iron that is to be found in space (which created some of humankind’s earliest iron artifacts). Leveraging the principle of “like attracts like”, Becky’s method involves concentrating on, and feeling for the iron in one’s own bloodstream, then mentally feeling out and reaching for the like substance in the earth, and in the skies above. If you do it right, it should make you feel like someone just opened a sluice, like that excess is draining out, and like you’re suddenly more present.

Shielding

So you’ve grounded and centered, and figured out that you’re getting reamed by whatever the hell is going on where you are. Now what?

Now you shield in order to minimize if not outright stop the factors causing the overload from getting through. Depending on how extreme the conditions are where you are, you may need to keep an eye on and redo your shields as needed. Here, I would advise you to see these shields as being “in addition to” whatever else you use for defense (if you do). This is more like ‘magical sunblock’ as opposed to hardcore defenses.

So how do you crack out the magical sunblock for a bit of continued sanity?

self-care discoball — This disco ball is so extra.

One of the most commonly touted methods is the “disco ball” method, in which the individual visualizes themselves within a disco ball. Of course, you’re not only visualizing here, but also willing this to be so. It won’t work unless you’re fully invested.

With the disco ball, the idea is that the outer mirrors reflect away anything unwanted, thus leaving the person within protected and insulated. Give it a try, and see how you feel. How does the imagery work in your head? Because this is the funny thing about this kind of skill: not all imagery works equally in all people. This makes sense because not all people get equally invested in the same things, and like I said, you need to be invested. So if this is you, you need to find imagery representative of the same principles then work to build that imagery. Just be aware though that how you build your shields can affect how others perceive and react to you. I know some who prefer to create their shields out of a kind of woven net rather than an impenetrable and reflective surface as they believe that that degree of shielding impedes their ability to work.

Purification

Finally, don’t forget purification. In my opinion, purification is one of those massively important but generally somewhat neglected practices among modern Pagan practitioners. Which is a pity because we pick up so much dreck in our lives that it’s pretty easy to become somewhat bogged down and heavy. This is where purification comes in, both for homes and individuals.

Keeping your home clean is your most basic home purification, but it’s also good to try and burn purifying récels (incense) around your home such as either mugwort, or a rosemary/vervain/juniper mixture. This smoke can also be used for the self too (I like to burn it in a cast iron Dutch oven and just stand over it so that I’m enveloped by the smoke).
Taking cleansing baths with cleansing herbs like rosemary or birch is also helpful; saltwater is also good. I also like to keep herb oils on hand for emergency situations – hyssop oil is good for this.

These are clearly not the only purification methods that you can use; I could write an entire post just on purification (and I may just do so at some point). This whole post is intended as more of a rough and ready survival guide (and reminder to take care of you).

Well, the gym is calling (more self-care), and I’ve got to angry-run on a treadmill. Be well.

Tag: tools

5 Magical Hacks for the Brokeass Witch