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

another. If you’ve been reading about the power of a witch’s unbreakable Will and Word, then you can imagine that this will also factor into the degree of “brawn” in our individual spiritual make up. I will integrate more of how you can use this aspect in a very real and effective way, in this topic. But since my path as a witch, is not merely the Four Dimensional paths that everyone walks on their way through town; but a strongly spiritual path, as a Danaan witch of the blood: I was also subject to growing up in the Summer Court. You have to consider that most of these fae, demonic, angelic and other such apparitions are extra-dimensional in their very nature, and subject to authorities in whatever realms they cross. Even me. Even YOU!

In Celtic story telling, there are the known “Seely Court” and “Unseely Courts” of the respective “good” and darker fae spirits. In my locality, as a Celt living far from Celtic lands, there was my local “Summer Court”; where certain strong spiritual entities and influences gather at certain times, to discuss and regulate how certain seasons will be effected and by what resources. My inherent, innermost nature is a singular kind of guardian or protector, symbolized in my Celtic birth sign, the Unicorn or Flaming Spear of the Holly month. What your inner spirit is like, manifests itself in your outer world, by how you behave, or what things you tend to choose. What comes out of you, is what defines you as a soul. So ALL of us serve somebody, or some authority greater than ourselves.

As a Danaan, I am as much a part of the inner, spiritual nature of our physical planet, as any other force of Nature. By attending Summer Court, I knowingly and willingly, commune and join forces with Mother Danu. In interacting in the hierarchy, I learn to act responsibly as Her son, and one of a great many other and diverse “children” of Danu, Mother Earth. There are certain rights, “perks”, and an appropriate degree of authority in Nature that I enjoy, working within my lawful framework. Depending upon your own spiritual walk or setting, and the degree of strength and authority that you have in YOUR Will and Word, this is also true of you too.

There’s a LOT of inherent “truth” in any believable lie, or simple stories, that give them their weight or impact. The real trick, is discerning the facts from the fiction, and using them to your advantage. For instance: Consider all of the old tales concerning vampires. I’m not going to get into ALL aspects of vampirism here, but I’ll deal with them on a much smaller and practical basis, to give you some tools, that you can actually profit from.

Everyone knows that vampires are commonly believed to be sanguine feeders, or “blood suckers”. There are a number of good, old fashioned granny witchery methods of throwing off blood suckers. But beyond the Euro-trash versions of Count Dracula, very few muggles ever REALLY get it. The first line of defense is GARLIC! Lots of garlic! The more of it around, the more they hate it. Were you aware that there are a myriad of forms of sanguine feeders or blood suckers, than Bela Lugosi wannabes? There are leeches, mosquitoes, ticks and more. And if you are one of those homeopathic types of people, who take natural garlic tablets, or eat a lot of garlic in your food, ALL of these creatures will find your blood to be most repulsive to them. While everyone is getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, you will likely get only one or two bites all night. And those bites come by those intrepid insects, that won’t stay to feed a second longer, after they get a fatal taste, of that garlic infused mixture in your veins. Or consider the effect of throwing salt on a leech, and what happens to them. There’s a deeper, inherent truth found illustrated within the folktale, that will make you wiser! How about the bit about them not being able to enter into your home unless they are specifically invited?

Commanding Entities in Your Domain…

Under the authority that you, and everybody is given as occupiers of homes and domains, in this material realm that we are all intimately familiar with: YOU have your own authority of saying whom is allowed access, and whom is NOT allowed at all. And you all have varying degrees of strength, implements, weaponry or such, to back up your claims, when they are challenged by those who would usurp your rightful place. In the chapter on Artificing, we discussed some of the effects that “cold iron” has on certain realms of creatures, or even the “grounding effects” that it was on various electro-magnetic fields, as are even commonly found by paranormal investigators in haunted places, and among haunted artifacts. Yes. You can shake a knife, an athame, or a sword and command with the threat of force, many and most non-corporeal invaders, to back off out of YOUR domain! In much the same as you can discourage or banish small insects, and unseen microscopic invaders with disinfectants, poisons, and repellants: There are items such as certain incenses, herbs, salts, vibrations or E.M. fields and even a commanding attitude, that they will find repellent to have to endure by staying in your domain. There’s a LOT to be said for the shamanic effects of burning copal resin, or sage and cedar smudge sticks, for making certain environments uninhabitable for the more negative denizens of the planes.

What you more aptly need to first come to terms with is: What did they find so “inviting” about your domain to begin with? Not everything spiritual is negative, or consistently beneficial either. Much like your own spirit, traveling the astral planes: You or they are not wholly one thing or another. You may have your own reasons to care for, or even despise the person or domain that you are currently visiting. YOU are the astral spirit of a human being, with human concerns, likes and dislikes, and your own inherently human motives for showing up as you did. But I always caution you about anthropomorphizing everything, as if it were human also. There are creatures, like mosquitoes, that feed on blood., and a simple lit citronella candle, can influence their tiny mindsets, to want to be someplace other than your tent or room. There are also extra-dimensional creatures, that feed on “vibes”, life forces, and auras, and they may find one sort or another desirable over others. Some prefer the adrenalin infusion that puts an electric sweet quality to the blood and aura, when their prey has been sufficiently terrified of some unknown, or known threat to their lives. An influence of sage, salt, garlic, or the strong willing of a calmer composure, may be what’s needed to put them “off of their feeding”.

Other nature spirits, may like the sacred, or even profane, ley energy found in certain areas of the land, and feel drawn to those. Some may lend their own sweet influences to your home environment, and be welcome guests or boarders. While others may be spiteful, mischievous or malicious and need to be forcefully evicted from the premises. YOUR premises, and YOU will have to learn to take full command of YOUR domain, and accept no arguments, or challenges to this. By now, it is probably dawning on you, why some of the Artifacts that I created, had such an intimidating nature to them. I made certain that I, or the witches that owned them, would not be entities to challenge lightly. It’s a HUGE multiverse, and we don’t want to spend our every waking hours contesting for our own space. When rats find food plentiful enough to find your home inviting, you remove it, or seal off the food sources, and then drive out or exterminate the rats. The can also employ a cat or a dog, to discourage them ever returning. For other vermin, you remove the things they found inviting: Dampness, rot, or such and then make your environment more amenable to YOUR health, and less so to theirs.

There are demonic creatures that may be drawn to feed off of some of the negative aspects, that you allow in your own lifestyles. I have a younger sister whose choices in life, were amusing to her own warped sense of humor, but drew a plethora of particularly bad spiritual influences, who took all of that as a proper “for rent” sign, to move into her home. This meant that at fairly regular intervals, it became necessary to walk into her home, and drive them out forcefully. But it was always and ever the same, that she would continue on her ways as ever, and consistently draw more and more of these back to her all over again. Sometimes, YOU need to be responsible for your own choices, and such are the things you can reap, by not making some needed changes in your ways. If you’re going to insist upon leaving out food all over the place, then get used to the idea of living in a vermin infested home. As “wise” witches, we need ALWAYS to not simply consider WHAT is the problem (haunting, home infestation or possession), but WHY it is so (available food, energy, inviting atmosphere). Faeries will dwell in places that they find delightful. So will demons, rats and imps.

The very nature of my book on practical witchery, is not in sharing WHAT, that I may specifically use in a given situation, but WHY I may choose something, and WHY it will work for me. The purpose of this being, that I don’t want witches that ALWAYS have to look up something in a book. Though a good selection of books will round out our educations well. But I need to make you functionally wise; to be able to discern the nature of the things that you are dealing with, to have an idea of what influences, that you have available. And how to bring those influences and effects to bear, to accomplish your own specific goals. Having re-established that precept in this chapter: I need to share a couple of my own case histories, that you can study and take apart for yourselves, to understand WHAT I did, HOW I determined these things, and WHY I chose to interact with them as I did. I had said in the beginning, that not ALL “ghosts” are the spirits of departed human beings. But what if what you are facing, really is?

The Haunting of Examination Room #2

All hospitals have ghosts. It is easily determined, as it is from these sorts of places, that many human beings depart this aspect of living, and “ready or not”, find themselves, unceremoniously ensconced within the next aspect of their spiritual immortality. For the most part, spirits rarely stay on for more than a few weeks or months at best, before they figure it out, that they can move on to better things than loitering there. They simply get caught unawares, and don’t know what to do, or where to go, because nobody had told them, that this was going to happen. In this blindered paradigm, people all seem to imagine that death, is only something that will happen to other people and not themselves, and fail to prepare properly for it. The ways that you choose to live and conduct yourselves in life, are going to have a great deal of bearing, upon what you have available to you afterwards as an evolving human soul. It’s no easy deal to figure those out after the fact. And many will find themselves stuck in a temporal rut because of this. So, it was with a soul named Georgie. There was also a lesson, that I had learned in a very peculiar kind of dream, months before I came upon