From the Forums: Magic: Not for Use by Special Little Snowflakes. by Kirt A White

~~~Bloggers Note: Yet again, Kirt highlights a problem we all too often seen in the forums and even more sadly, in real life practice. The problem is one of cutesy fantasies or Hollywood misconceptions intersecting with real magickal practices in ways that can prove dangerous to snowflake practitioners and fluffy bunnies.

 For some reason a great many of the interesting and helpful posts in the groups I visit seem to come from the same handful of people, one of whom is Kirt. He offers real life experience and common sense knowledge in easy to understand language to further the knowledge of newbies and others. He is not a part of Sacred Hands Coven and I have never been graced to meet him IRL, but from what I have read of his posts, he strikes me as one of those guys you want to hang out with in a coffee shop all night talking over life, the universe and everything! Thanks for permission to post, Kirt!~~~ ***Only a handful of slight corrections, to spelling, or punctuation for when the spirit and passion overtook his typing. All the intelligence and spirit is his own.

 Long rant from dealing with stupid people. If you need a “trigger” warning, pull up your big boy panties and grow the fuck up. There’s your warning.

Apparently, I have to add “fluffy bunny trigger warning” because some people find it impossible to see the word trigger without thinking PTSD, [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] then, suddenly assume they know what the post is about.

I’m sorry to tell you this little fluffy bunny but you are a human being. We all want to be special, we all want to be more than we are, and we all hope that the magic in us somehow sets us apart from everyone else. The reality is a few steps to the side of that, sadly.

Magic is a force of creation and destruction, it permeates through everything, and nearly everyone uses it, or can learn to use it, to some extent. Being able to use magic does not automatically make you an Archon of the divine. In this life, in the here and now, you are a human being, whatever you may have been in the past is just that, in the past. While you are ultimately the culmination of your experiences, each new life is a new beginning, a fresh start to learn new things. All the respect, admiration, and abilities from the past still need to be earned. The path to your gifts may not be as hard but it must still be walked. When a god or goddess calls you their son or daughter, realize that that is an affectation, like priest or priestess, and not a sign of actual familial connection. You are physical they are not. Even if said deity influenced your parents to create you, you are still the product of your human parents and not half god or goddess. A god cannot reincarnate backward into flesh that is not how it works and a deity is too evolved, it would need to break shards of itself apart into new souls, that still doesn’t make those new souls… that deity. Connected to it, sure, but no longer a part of the whole.

While I’m on the subject of deity, quit whitewashing them to try to make them more PC [politically correct] and user friendly. Some of them, simply are not friendly, nor should they ever be. Even the most benign face of the Morrigan will not hesitate to gut you like a trout if you piss her off, she is the ultimate battle bitch no matter which face she shows, sweet and cuddly mother she will never be, nor should she be. The darker gods are dark for a reason and need to stay that way. We need that energy; it would be like trying to turn Cernunnos into a kind father figure. True, he may have his moments of that, but at his core he is a god of primal maleness. Sex, ego, and power are his weapons of choice and he is good at them. Not every deity is a harmonious balance of masculine and feminine. Trying to make magic more PC is just completely ridiculous and downright disrespectful to the beings we pay homage to.

There is too much ignorance going around. People calling on gods with no idea who they are calling or how to properly summon, calling gods of different pantheons without checking to see if they can get along with each other first. Younglings constantly wanting to be spoon-fed the answers without using their brains to look shit up. Magic always has a cost, it may not seem like it sometimes but there will always be a price to pay, and part of that price is that you put some honest effort into your spell work. Magic won’t work for you if you just can’t be bothered to put any energy onto it.

Clarifying comments and original text found: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MPWNF/permalink/10155327282571466/

Witchery: When Life Settles Down, the Time is Right. A Psychomanteum, at Last!

For close onto three decades, ever since reading a book back in the mid-eighties about the works of John Dee, I have wanted to have a dedicated psychomanteum in my home. While I was a single woman and living on my own in apartments, it was not feasible to set aside an entire room dedicated to the purpose of connecting with spirits. When Azrael and I first married we discussed it often, but with the arrival of our first son, barely four months into the marriage, we had more important things to concern ourselves with at the time.

A few months passed and with running the little occult store, coping with Azrael’s work-related injury, the shocking need for our beloved first son’s open heart surgery at four and a half months of age, a working psychomanteum completely lost its importance in our minds. Roo’s surgery went amazingly well, thanks to the superlative efforts of one Dr. Lawrence Fox, pediatric cardiologist. A week of recovery in hospital to return home, then we continued on with our lives. The addition to our family of several beloved and “adopted” kids from the shop dropping by daily or nightly, the resultant religious study classes, coven circles, handfastings, pagan celebrations, and more, then the surprise expectation of our beloved twins, life moved even faster. Add in their birth, Az’s return to better health, his new job after teaching himself computers and networking, my teaching myself web design in my spare time while taking care of the (now, three) toddlers and homeschooling them. All thoughts of building a psychomanteum flew out the window, no room, no time, and no energy left for such a pursuit.

Two years and a few months beyond the day when our beloved twins, Coo and Doo, were added to our beloved Roo, we got into our first actual house; only two bedrooms, but half the garage was built into a mostly hidden room, so we finally we had a dedicated magick room. We used it for many spells and much research for two months and nine days before I suddenly lost all focus when we lost our beloved Azrael. Couldn’t stay there, in the place where he had so briefly lived, so I moved house again.

This time I got a mortgage on a tiny two story; with three small bedrooms up, one large dining/living room and a tiny kitchen down. No room for magick but an enormous backyard for four of those huge climbing toys, a 20′ circular trampoline, a large, but shallow, above ground pool, dog run for our Irish and a one and a half story shed to store bins of toys and such in; perfect for three little boys who needed lots of distractions and room to run after losing their best friend/favorite playmate and also having to start attending Kindercare while mommy went off to work and left them all day long for the first time in their little lives. Since I started with a web design company three weeks to the day after Az passed, there was no time to think about magick, much less a psychomanteum.

As time passed, I changed jobs two years in and when to work with Az’s old company. I got to meet so many people he loved, told stories about and who loved him, too, from the stories they told me of him. Six years in and that house was paid off eight and a half years after losing him and working myself literally sick and into the hospital several times over the last year and a half there. Boys were teen and preteens by now, so time to make a change, again.

Suddenly, laid off work at the same time I found out my dad had terminal cancer; I spent the next two years getting my medical transcription license, running dad around to doctors, nursing homes, boys to school in another city, then dad to hospice, fixing up and selling the tiny house for a great profit while house shopping, finding this amazing place, paying cash, and finally moving dad into this new large house with us and setting him up into the master suite until we lost him seven months later. Moved in a very false friend, several family members and an acquaintance, over the next few years after losing dad; if someone needed help, we helped. That is just how it was. Now, it is just the boys and I, things have settled, we have declared no more giving a room to anyone and everyone in need after the last few experiences we have had with family members and the kid from the boys’ school who was allegedly kicked out of his parent’s home. We found the truth about his situation and the causes for his troubles, including the unmentioned arrests, unfortunately, after the fact. So, no more charity in the Clan household, we are “done”.

In being “done”, we have started reassessing the layout of the current house. Things are moving around, being organized, items stored in the attic, and finally, I will have both of the enormous walk-in closets in my room, for my own use. Anyone who knows me, personally, knows I have enough clothes to maybe half fill a normal sized closet, at the very most. I am the opposite of a clothes horse, and do not like to shop at all, never have… unless we are talking books and occult items… then I plead the 5^th amendment, immediately! Why else pick a house with not only the boys’ big stone game room, and lots of storage space, but my front library, as well.

So, in the next few days of cleaning and reorganizing, I am hoping to begin the cleaning and construction phase for the long awaited psychomanteum. I am brimming with ideas and almost vibrating with excitement! I expect to have it done before Yule, and will (with any luck) be able to have it in use in time to speak with Azrael on the 17^th anniversary of his leaving. The set up of the room will not take long, but I already know and am prepared for it to take a while to acclimate to the use of the room. I have all, or almost all, that I need to build out the room for the intended use, there is plenty of room for the chair, table, mirror, and necessary accoutrement to achieve the purpose, the only hold back at this point is time. With holidays approaching, time could be an issue, but I am hoping to report, very soon, that the psychomanteum is up and running.

Musical Interludes Highland’s Apparition

“Highland’s Apparition”

Chevelle’s song is about a house that some of the band mates shared for a time. They said they experienced some rather creepy effects during their time living in the home, which inspired them to write about the events. The song is lyrical and haunting all on its own.

See it, startled
Afternoon I had to ask
Or dare I, ever know
Tell us, we are demented
Watch as attention span
Hold, so fast
Then go up in smoke

I don’t think you’re nervous enough
It happened to show its own face
Search for the soulless ends
Now point him towards rest

Culprits, shudder
Apparitions left in time
If we’re honest, sight unknown
Crowing, frozen, bedroom
Awoke up certain
Lays a tomb, her tree holds it
Unbeknownst, still sending chills

I don’t think you’re nervous enough
It happened to show its own face
Search for the soulless ends
Now point him towards rest

You won’t find me curling up
A place that should make sense
Well, excuse me for this better judgment
Night is so worth waiting for
A blinding scare so cauterizing
Arms out pointing, sit and stare
At this proof, this living proof
This proof, this living proof

Sun’s up, braver
Hands and legs untouched
Before we forget, save this
Unaging proof

I don’t think you’re nervous enough
It happened to show its own face
Search for the soulless ends
Now point him towards

I don’t think you’re nervous enough
It happened to show its own face
Search for the soulless ends
Now point him towards rest

Produced by: Chevelle and Brian Virtue