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

entities, visible and invisible are witness to the extent that this witch maintains that power.

You can begin to see, that such a person doesn’t get trivial about their promises and commitments. When you're the type known to move heaven and earth to keep those commitments; people begin to take it very seriously, when they see you addressing any issues. They feel more inclined to get behind someone they know to be formidable in a thing. People who are known to be petty and trivial in this way, are determined by others to be not worthy of so much effort, as they will likely abandon the project when the going begins to get rough. And quite rightly so!

So, when you need to invoke higher powers and want to approach them, with all the due respect that they deserve, to make your case before them; you need to take the pains to make the extra effort to connect with them and align yourself with their primary purpose. Notice also that, I’m NOT telling you what colors of candles, or incenses to use to approach this one, or that one here. It is not “knowledge” that I’m sharing here, but “wisdom” to make your own "knowledge" work better for you. If you are preparing a spell or ritual to work between yourself and chosen Deity, the symbolism invoked, should be your personal expression to a specific Persona. It is a communion between YOU and THEM and should reflect your utmost personal messages.

 

 

INCANTATIONS

 Invoking the many powers that be.

N aming elemental entities, 

C alling that, which cannot be grasped,

A s though we have only but to ask.

N ever our candle so brightly burned,

T han knowing what we never learned.

A ll that fills us, makes us rise.

T ell the winds, tell the skies!

I ncantations are the words,

O f spirits, demons and angels heard.

N ight time’s fears may come or flee,

S peaking to those powers that be.

Likewise, if you are preparing a ritual to prepare yourself and others for such a communion, it would be wiser to gather them together before hand, and establish the appropriate elements of this, that serves to bring each and all, to a better understanding of the Entity that you wish to invoke, and express themselves on a deeper level before them. You'll notice that I'm also not telling you to call THIS or THAT in your rituals.  It is hoped that you'll choose wisely and knowledgably, and not make deals with devils who have no compunctions about breaking them.  This is the whole purpose of having the ritual to begin with. In giving you a generic candle color to invoke Aphrodite (as an example) into a ritual, won’t help much, except to make you all acclaim MY authority between you and Aphrodite. I've just gotten between you, and that did not serve to bring you closer to HER. Which is what we had all hoped to get from this.

From one culture, sect, tradition to another, these aspects such as candle colors will vary. Some will choose white, for purity. Others may choose a very feminine pink, or a rosy red for passion. I’ve personally been in rituals that chose a pale blue candle to invoke the essence of Venus. It’s NOT the generic color that will draw a Spirit (yours AND theirs). It is the personal, spiritual and emotional content and connection you establish your own communion and make it work. Much as you would choose your words in their contexts, to express your feelings on a matter.  Even as each of you, goes through the reasons for your choices of each aspect of the elements of your ritual, you invest yourselves into the communion that you are hoping to establish. You begin to draw closer, simply by applying yourself so. This is a ritual that cannot fail to perform that which it is designed to. Unless, of course you have completely missed the essence of the personality that you were hoping to connect with. That’s been done quite regularly in legalistic churches that invoke Jesus, and then act all self righteous and judgmental on everyone not involved with them. It only serves to keep the warlock pastor from having to find honest work.

As I tried to explain in the beginning of this chapter: The effectiveness of all of this witchery, is in whether you are simply PRACTICING your craft, going through the motions, no matter how meticulously, simply BECAUSE they are always done so. Or is it because you are inherently, and intimately connected to every aspect of your craft? Do you PRACTICE magick? Or are you a PART of that very magick, that you are practicing? The degree of the latter that you can attain, will be the determining factor in the measure of your effectiveness.

The Premise of "The Itch"...

 

There’s an aspect of a young witch’s training and development at the childhood level in our clan, that I’ve described in a number of my stories and novels, that I would like to expound a little further on here. I’m hoping that by so doing, that I’ll open up some greater horizons among my readers.

In order for you to really grasp, and get a handle upon the parts of your mind, where this sort of thing takes place, and effects others the most: I need you to recall those times, when you felt someone’s eyes upon you, or became aware of some kind of scrutiny, or the presence of someone good or bad, as the case may be, or even alarm for the danger of someone not present with you. The correlations of these experiences are that this was information, processed by your brain, that did NOT come from the dogmatically proclaimed, “normal” Five Senses, of Touch, Taste, Sight, Hearing, or Smell. They obviously came to you by other means entirely. As with any part of your body’s system, these parts will remain “undeveloped” from their fullest potential, if you ignore them and refrain from exercising them. THIS is the purpose of a development tool for young and novice witches in our clan called, “The Itch”.

Below is an excerpt from “Matriarch of the Witch Clan”, Part Sixteen, “The Itch”, to give you an excellent example of how this tool has been applied to our own for many centuries:

“It was a rainy summer day and she had to occupy the children with something productive. Like itching. The children were playing out of the rain on the front porch, and she brought them each some paper and a sharpened pencil. On Johnny’s she drew a face and a crude body as he couldn’t write or spell very well. “Now here’s a game you can play almost anywhere,” she said. “that will improve your abilities as a witch. We call it ‘The Itch.’ First you imagine you feel an itch, like on the left side of your nose. Leona, you will write that down on your notepad, and Johnny, you will make an X on the left side of the nose on your picture. When you can feel it on yourself, you will then imagine that same itch on the other person. You will not scratch your own itch, but promise yourself that you will not feel relieved, until the other person scratches the itch on the left side of their nose. When they do that, you may show them your paper, so they know how good you are, and check off your example as done. Johnny, you will draw a circle around the X’s that you have been successful with. Got that?”

For the first half hour, Emma sat with the children as they tried to make each other itch and scratch. It was worth the entertainment just to see them making faces as they tried harder to concentrate on sending an itch.

“Kids,” she said, “straining the muscles in your faces will do absolutely nothing to help you. It is not a muscle thing, it’s a mind thing. Relax your face and your body. The only thing you should feel is the itch, and then you pretend it is not on you at all, but on them. It is not even your itch. It is their itch and they need to scratch it. You could probably just close your eyes and take a nap, but then you’ll miss it when they scratch it, and that’s the fun part.”

Johnny sat there pensively as Leona reached up and scratched behind her right ear. Like a jack-in-a-box, he jumped up, and shown Leona his X on the right ear of his picture and drew a circle around it.

“No fair,” whined Leona. “I was busy thinking of an itch somewhere else.”

“Where was that?” Johnny asked, scratching his left knee.

“Right there!” Leona jumped at him, showing her notepad triumphantly.

It was off to a good start, and Emma thought she might get some laundry started and a little cleaning done in the house. The cousins were battling with itches and each trying to out do the other.”

*End of Excerpt*

Later on in the novel, you find that the premise for this exercise is, that anything you can feel: you can transmit to others to feel. There are many people, who come by this as a natural genetic trait, that we call: “domination”. It is manifest in our children, that when they are frightened, infatuated with someone, or feeling anything strongly; that nearly everyone else in the immediate area or room, whether they understand why or not, will feel likewise. To develop this talent to a finer edge, will broaden the boundaries of a worthy witch’s ability to influence in their spellcraft, by a very large margin. As a caveat: I also have to include here, that it opens its own peculiar “bag of snakes”. So I’ll say a word or two about that here, before I go further on into some of the more useful applications of this.

There are heart breaking elements of this talent, that can literally drive young men and women into a severe depression and even suicide. I learned them all as I was growing up. I was the “little Johnny” in the story excerpt above, and I was very gifted in this aspect of the craft. Fortunately for me, I had a very wise Grandma to understand what was happening, and help counsel and guide me through those times. It did not stop them from happening. But it helped me to recognize and understand when it was happening, and made it hurt a bit less than it did.

Invariably, in the lives of hormonally imbalanced adolescents there comes those times when they become hopelessly infatuated with the handsomest boy, or the prettiest girl in their classrooms or schools. For a budding young adept, this is no different, but with one notable exception: As strongly as they feel this infatuation towards this individual: That person will feel very much likewise. BUT… Only while they are in their immediate presence. It doesn’t matter if that target of their infatuation, is already engaged in a working relationship with yet another individual. If the adept witch is a strong one, they will find themselves hopelessly infatuated within the field of that adept’s influence regardless.

This