Poppet Magick: Bless the Home Poppet

I have yet to meet a witch who is not concerned with the state of their home. Bringing blessings into the home can lighten the air, improve magick workings, and bring peace into the home. The nature of the blessings the witch is trying to draw to the household can define what is placed inside the poppet in the end, but there are a few items, as listed below, which may be included for the purpose of bringing a general blessing upon the house. Also, remember to add personal items from each member of the household, and the house itself, to strengthen the blessing for all who live there.

Creating poppets for home blessings require a poppet that is durable and long lasting because the blessing for the home needs to be long lasting, as well. Once the witch has created it, the poppet may be recharged occasionally, as needed or as circumstance change in the home. For example, with each new year, the witch may wish to refresh the herbs used in the poppet and rededicate it to its use.If a new child joins the household, the witch may reopen the poppet and add personal items for the child as well as adding additional herbs, stones or other items to increase coverage. If a new pet joins the family, the poppet can be reopened to include items to reflect that as well. As long as the poppet itself lasts, it may always be renewed with fresh items and have additional items added, as suits the needs of the household, which may continue to change over the lifetime of the household.

• Poppet Idea:  Cotton or linen
• Color: Brown for general blessing and depends on specific blessing sought for other colors
• Herbs, plants, tree, etc: Elderberries, Meadowsweet, Ylang Ylang and others as needs apply
• Metals: As needs for the household apply
• Stones: Vivianite, Chalcedony Ylang Ylang, and others as needs apply

As closely as possible, create a poppet that resembles the household. If you are talented enough to shape the house similarly to the actually house, more power to you. If not, then a general house shape which is decorated in the colors found in the home, with small paint chips, or tiny swatches of carpeting, perhaps even tiny bits of tile, wood from floors or cabinets, ceilings etc, would be more than sufficient.

I suggest that the witch uses cloth due to the ever-changing nature of a household during the lifetime of a family. Swaths of the fabric in the furniture may be added inside the poppet, changed as the furniture changes over the years. As jobs change, or people marry; children are born or grow up, and move away, as needs of the individuals in the household change, a cloth poppet is much easier to make changes to than any other types. It is much sturdier and can withstand multiple changes over the years. After all, though new poppets may be made as needed, the hallowed nature of the long-term poppet contains any remnants of the original spell energy and of all other energy added over the years as you strengthen the poppet through use.

As you create the poppet focus on the specific blessings, the household currently needs. Add personal items from each person within the household, you may even choose to add dirt and/or dried plant matter from the yard of the home. Focus on the blessings desired as you collect and create the poppet.

If you wish, you may display it in the center of the household as you would a piece of art, or hide it in the center of the house if you wish to keep it private. Each witch, or recipient of the poppet, if it is made for another, must decide for themselves how to utilize the poppet best.

Poppet Magick: To Silence a Gossip Poppet

Many times witches are the targets of gossip from people who barely know them or people who know them well, but do not approve of witches in general. Virtual strangers, co-workers, enemies, or people who simply hate witches, etc. may spread lies and gossip designed to harm the witch, cause problems in specific or in general. Other times, family members, or old friends, who do not approve of the witch’s choice of spiritual path, may choose to slander them as a means of retaliation against their choice. These types of attacks can be subtle, indirect, or even blatant, at times. If the witch knows where the gossip about them is coming from, they may choose to use a poppet to work sympathetic magick to stop that specific person from wagging their tongue. If the gossip source is unknown, a general stop gossip poppet may be most useful.

Creating a poppet for specific people can be difficult, however, as it is extremely helpful for the magick to gather personal items to include in the poppet. While a drinking straw or cigarette butt with their saliva on it will work, hair, fingernails, or a scrap from a piece of clothing they have worn is preferable. Difficult, yes, but impossible, no. If you know the person works in your office, visit their chair and search for hair, and even dandruff (which is, after all their skin) on the chair. Swab the speaking end of their office phone with a bit of slightly damp cotton to collect saliva. Get imaginative to protect yourself.

• Poppet Idea: Paper Mache for known sources, Cloth for unknown sources.
• Color: Mostly Black base but with Yellow stitches for general gossip, Red stitches for outsiders or enemies, Pink stitches for family or friends, Green stitches if based on greed or jealousy, etc.
• Herbs, plants, tree, etc: Adder’s Tongue, Rose Geranium, Slippery Elm
• Stones: Kunzite, Iolite

If the source of the gossip is known, I suggest a Paper Mache poppet, so that the necessary items may be placed inside the poppet as usual. Gather the herbs, stones and personal items from the source, include them inside the poppet with a written parchment spell to end gossip. Decorate it to reflect the specific look of the person and add the trim colors mentioned above as “x shaped” stitches drawn over the mouth to delineate the source’s connection to you, whether friend, or foe, jealousy based or general gossip, etc. After the poppet is completed, bury it in the ground and allow it to rot away to nothing and focus on the gossip itself rotting in the target’s mouth. Visualize that every time they try to spread additional gossip about you, going forward, they will have a foul taste in their mouth and eventually, their gossip with die away just as the poppet dies away when it finishes rotting into the earth.

If the source of the gossip is unknown or possibly wide-spread, create a generalized figure neither male nor female; add the herbs and stones, as well as a generalized parchment spell to stop gossip about you. Over the mouth, you will actually stitch X’s with a rainbow of colors of thread to cover all bases. Visualize the person(s) spreading the gossip as having pain in their mouths, tongues, and throats with each piece of gossip and each lie they spread but do not bury the poppet, yet. Any time you hear of a piece of the gossip being told, add another stitch of the necessary color or if unsure, add another stitch of each color to the doll until the gossip ends Once it slows down considerably, you may bury the poppet and allow the poppet to die along with the death of the gossip being told about you. In this manner the witch silences the gossip regardless of the gossiper(s).

From the Forums: Guard Your Privacy by Heather Treehugger

If someone is new to the Internet, using FaceBook or other communities, to the practice of their path or seeking a new path:

If you have questions or are seeking help please, please be wary of people who want you to contact them via private emails, private messenger, and/or phone calls. Guard your privacy well. People who run scams, steal identities, ask for money for false claims of skills, and the types who send viruses to people whom they judged to be “not like them” are not above lurking in these groups and doing what damage they can to people out of sheer maliciousness. Requests for these “private” conversations have been happening a lot more frequently in this group lately. If someone is actually there to help, provide accurate information, etc. it can be done in the forum just as easily.

As several people have been mentioning lately in threads, if you are seeking information, ideas, etc. and someone says that they can help, there is no reason that they cannot help you right here in the open forum area or via Facebook message area. One big reason to go outside Facebook is to ask something personal or ask for personal information that is better off guarded and protected. Another reason is to separate people who are new from those who know better. When posted in the group, anyone trying to pass false information, charge an outrageous fee, or collect information of a personal nature not actually needed will be called out by those who know better and are willing to help protect other members.

Going private on Facebook messages should be more than sufficient until you get to know that person and trust their judgment. Granted it might be necessary to discuss personal info in creating a specific spell and the private chat function on Facebook is more than sufficient for that purpose. (i.e. I went private in FaceBook messages area to ask a member about a personal health issue for a friend as I did not know how private or embarrassing her friend’s issue might have been and I was discussing a specific targeted spell for that issue.)

Just be careful, please. Not everyone who joins these groups is who or what they claim to be and that could be dangerous for people new to Facebook, new to a specific path or just seeking info in general. Better bet may be to watch the threads until you get a feeling as to whether or not you can trust the person or ask the advice of people who are on here often whom you DO trust to see what they may know of that person.

On a personal note: Just because a person is in a group with you and may share magickal beliefs in the group, wait until you know more about each other to go around inviting them to be your FaceBook friend or accepting their invitation to you. You may not want to see their other opinions and beliefs (other than magickal) on your regular wall. i.e. I am a rabid liberal and not everyone wants to see all my liberal rants on their walls!