Practical Witchery!, John Stormm [ap literature book list txt] 📗

have power over them. That’s a truth in a number of ways besides the magickal realm. But there’s a host of names they may be known by. That’s true of all of us. You also have been known by a number of names in the courses of your lives, if you think about it. Each one of them reflects a part of you at a certain stage and in a certain social niche. They may not reflect too much of what you are now, but if someone calls you by it, you will likely respond with at least a twinge of nostalgia.

So when we get a witch book that tells you that you can invoke the fae spirit “Pickle Puss”, the truth of the matter is you could very likely be calling up a spirit much like Shabriri by one of his many aliases or something far worse, like Lillith. Now the deception with Shabriri was on several levels. In demonology, he associated with striking people blind, but he’s a good deal more talented than simply that. He’s expert at “blindsiding” people. He gets on your good side with some first class and timely advice, and over a period of time you get to the point where you rely very much on him as opposed to your own discretion and intuition and after a while, you no longer hear his voice off to one side or the other, but in your own head. By the time you begin to realize that this might not actually be a good thing, it’s too late and someone stronger than yourself has taken up residence in your corporal body.

Then comes the blackouts, where you are out and about town doing something, but can’t for the life of you remember what that was. They start very slowly so you hardly notice the missing time. It could be happening as “sleepwalking”. This activity increases until you’re blacking out at parties where you are not even drinking excessively and your friends ask you later about some really wild trick you performed that you have no idea of. In my case, there were elements of levitation of self or objects or other people. I don’t have that ability, but Shabriri *does*.

More and more he will take over your corporal existence to work his own agenda and your weakened soul gets relegated to a dark place. Unless you are strong enough to mount enough resistance and get some help casting him out. For me, *that* whole episode is where I credit my finding Christ as a dyed-in-the-wool, born and bred pagan. But that’s another story for another time. It is also why I get suspicious when I see or hear of other witches performing feats like these. It suggests to me that there may be more than one squirrel in their attics.

It’s not always so easy, simple or painless to remove such things once they’ve attached so deeply. In very rare cases, it can even result in death and since the demon cannot die and the human soul is captive… guess what they get to keep? That’s not book learning, it’s my personal experience talking.  Inevitably it will turn out, that to get rid of one or more invasive spirits, one needs the help of an even stronger spirit.  Either they have to belly up to the bar and deal with it and win, or find the help to get it done for them.  To my surprise, I had once found that there's a LOT to be said about Jesus, but with all of the "false shepherds" preying on sheep out there, there's no guarantee that you'll win anything with a name dropping charlatan.

The matter with Lillith is even more intense. To be honest, I knew about her, but I knew there are many “lilliths” and I figured the one who had taken over my second wife was a strong one, but not THE Lillith. You never know for sure when dealing with such things. There’s so much you truly do not want to know and they make full use of this. Like a master con-artist they will use what you want dearest of all and draw you into their trap with it. It’s amazing what they can get away with pulling over the eyes of even the best of us. A conman will get you by your greed or lusts. They say Satan works this way too.

But what if your desires are more simple and not so dark at all? All the better to hurt you with and then even the chance that you will turn to vengeance in righteous indignation and they’ll use this a number of ways to advance their own agendas and eventually make you a soldier on the wrong side of the battlefield. For hybrids like myself or even Laura, once you’ve gotten someone like Shabriri kicked out, it doesn’t necessarily end there. Even if you are mostly human, the experience gives you some knowledge that you wouldn’t have otherwise been privy to. That makes you dangerous and it behooves members of this faction to do whatever it takes to neutralize you as a threat.

The idea is, that now you know the signs of a possession intimately enough to be the one who helps that poor soul lose that extra baggage, before they can consolidate their hold. I do this every chance I get. I’ll at least point out my observations to someone nearest them who can do something. I’ll do a great deal more besides, but that is also another story for another time. Hybrids and very skilled witches give them a much bigger arsenal in this plane of existence. So, as it is not exactly a daily occurrence, as Laura describes hers as “semi annually”, such people can expect the odd, paranormal caller from time to time.

The more you know and the more you do, the more likely you will see this happen. There are *some* who believe I am the magnet that brings them such things. To *some* degree, this is true. If I see you at a certain crossroads or experimenting with something that can eat you, I’ll give you information that you can use to learn more and be safe (as much as possible to be safe). You’re heading that way, with or without me and what degree you actually learn and accept what I’ve given may act like stones in a pond, and cause ripples that will alert other creatures in your pond to your presence. In *that* way I am the magnet, but I accept no responsibility for what kind of attention you draw and if you don’t stab me outright, I’ll even help you deal with it.

Remember that there *is* a veil of secrecy that says if you don’t know about such things, you are not to know. You can guess all you want in the dark, but cannot be allowed to know for certain. Mystics will give advice on such things and just to show you how much the “blindness” affects us all, just look up the word “mystic” or “to mystify” in the dictionary and you see that even the very name declares that their jobs are to cloud and obscure things. They may give you fair advice to watch out for some obstacle in the fog you are groping in, but they will not clear the fog and you will rely on them for your navigation. People will come to these types as sheep, begging to be sheared or even butchered and the sign plainly says what they are and what they’ll do, but no one will notice because they all want to believe differently. I would prefer to illuminate rather than obscure. I say what I say and leave it at that and you believe what you like, but I’ve challenged your illusions and if you didn’t cast it away entirely, now you’ll begin to see and experience things that have been happening around you since time began (and in some cases *before* that) and without my help at all, you’ll know when to duck and when something might be useful. Hence my personal rules about accepting money or gifts.

It’s too easy to mistake someone like me for the other kind and I must make a plain difference between us so that you won’t get taken in by the next mystic to come walking by speaking about similar things. Their motivations are primarily money or wealth of some sort. I, on the other hand, know full well of yet another kind of “payback” and would rather collect that in the end when all my warring is done. I tell you plainly which side I serve and will point it out to you… but I cannot take you there and you must always make your own decisions for yourself. You alone will be responsible for them and reap whatever you’ve sown.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be trouble if you make all the right choices. Sometimes, that’s the reason trouble comes. But there is always help and that’s the big Christian secret in a nutshell. That’s as preachy as I get. Many will assume that because demons, or what they perceive to as demons are involved that it all has to do with some kind of evil in their lives or poor choices or being led about by their lusts. Never be so quick to judge. For a fatherless boy to adopt and hold onto a mentor like Shabriri or a young man rejected by the only family he knows to want to have a family of his own, he’s only wanting a security and normalcy in his life that *most* people can take for granted. Hence, I get real upset and reclusive on Christmas holidays and such as it only rubs it in deeper that these things are not for the likes of myself.

No matter what I would like to believe or someone tells me different about:  These parts of my soul were just convenient picking points for these creatures to torment and manipulate me by. For Laura, it’s no different even though her bloodlines hail by this faction. She’s still somewhat human and there’s things she secretly wishes that she could have just like you or I, and someone as ancient and wise as Lillith can twist her soul inside out so that all is laid bare and the shame and pain she feels, is more than she would feel if she were flayed alive. The nice thing about physical pain is that when it reaches a certain peak, you pass out and feel it no more (until you wake again). But the soul dredging emotional pain has no easy relief like that.

Many will mistakenly believe that if they take their own lives, this will offer them respite from the pain. I am so sorry to say that nothing can ever be farther from the truth. Your soul, which is doing all the hurting in this case, lives on immortal. The pain goes with you until you are healed of the malady. *If* you are in a position to be healed. The diabolicism of these creatures defies belief. Laura doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter of having to deal with such on occasion, but this is why I don’t advocate putting yourselves in any position where you’ll have to match wits with the likes of these.

Many of the younger and lower level sorts aren’t so hard to deal with, but when you get up into Shabriri’s or even Lillith’s range, you most certainly are going to hurt for it and you’ll remember that hurt for the rest of your lives. It’s no joke when it happens. You’ll feel like dying will be the best thing you can do and even that is a deception.

When I was rid of Shabriri and met Laura, I loved her for herself, and that she was someone very much like