In this article, we are going to explore divining offerings using poker cards to determine what will satisfy the spirit’s needs for an equivalent exchange.

So, let’s begin!

First, you must acquire a poker deck that you’re drawn to. This deck must never be used for anything else other than communicating with the daemonic powers you’re in relation with or approaching. You much treat this deck with respect,care, and kept wrapped inside of a wooden box. These cards will become a powerful tool connecting you directly with them. Once you’ve acquired the deck you’re drawn to, we must give them their purpose.

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Doing this is rather simple, but can be difficult to grasp in the beginning. I’ve mentioned this before, but your most important tool in your arsenal (and one that you will use more often than not) is bodily sensation; a deep bodily trance.

While the barbarous words and instruction for using them will be for my paid subscribers, I want everyone who reads this article to have access to the fundamentals. The words do work and they are indeed powerful; yet these words are nothing without the fundamentals and far newer than the witches preceding the appearance of these words.

What’s most important is relationship. When you see a plant that you might have need for, you must begin seeing this plant as more than just a simple green growing thing; it is an entity just as much as you or I. When you can grasp that, it only comes down to greeting it.

So, whether you’re growing your herbs or your journeying through some wild place, here is exactly what you need to do.

If you’re in a wild place looking for a plant, go into sensation. Try to stay in sensation the entire time you’re there, extending your sensation to the wild beings (trees, plants, beasts, etc) around you. When you’ve found your plant, you’ll change focus. If you’re working with a plant you grew, simply sit before it in sensation.

Either way, you will then bring your awareness to the plant. If you’re doing this with your eyes closed, you will certainly sense the plant before you.

This is the real greeting. This co-mingling of sensation fields is saying, “hello, friend.”

The words you will use are better when they come from the heart. The plants will not understand the words, of course, but this is why it is important that they are not just something you reiterate from a book.

They must be sincere and meaningful; the feelings provoked by the words you say will transmute through the connection made by sensation. Even if you were to say them from a book, You must “feel” your words and express them so that proper communication occurs and a relationship can be built.

For my paid subscribers, there will be nothing different that you’ll be doing except for the inclusion of the barbarous words, which you’ll be saying at the beginning of what I’ll instruct next.

So you’re in sensation, your awareness is focused on the plant, you must say something like the following:

[BARBAROUS WORDS]

“I greet thee well, spirit of (plant/tree),

Be blessed and empowered by she who has shaped our bodies and souls,

she who is Great Grandmother to us both, EUPHORBA!

I, [name], come to you as friend seeking aid with respect in my heart.

I ask that you release to me what I require of you with the powers and virtues that you grant the world intact.

In return, I shall give you gift of nourishment.

(place gifts near plant, dab blood onto the plant, spray alcohol over the plant or poor it about 6” away from the plant)

By this act, let us be bound in familiarity and benevolence,

for as I receive the aid I seek,

so shall you receive of my gift and gratitude.”

Take only what you need from the plant and never so much that you should doom it’s survivability.

That’s all that needs to be done! Do this any time you need to collect from a plant or simply want to build relationship with it. You can also do this to say “hello!” to all of the spirit’s of a wild place, just by falling into sensation and bringing your awareness to the environment. Do that, introduce yourself, and wait for images to form in your mind or sensations to appear in your body. Pay attention and you can discover a many things.

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The following is best performed on a full moon during the winter, in a PM hour of Mercury. However, any full moon will do, though try to shoot for the hour of Mercury, if possible.

Read the article entirely to learn what you will need to take with you or to bring together within your home.

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Witches, cunning folk, and many others under the occult umbrella have used herbs for centuries. Over time, some plants and their associations have became hard-coded, leading us to the list of plant associations we know today. But, what was done in a time before there were mass-produced books one could reference for spell work?

Long ago, any sort of knowledge surrounding spellwork involved oral tradition. Things were passed on from one person to the next and it remained that way up until education became a standard in growing societies. Just so, the first witch to identify a plant helper didn’t just go outside, look at a growing thing, and say, “Hmm, this will do!”

No, that’s entirely too simple and far too impulsive.

However, what you will need to do isn’t complicated or difficult, at all.

For the witch, it begins with the fetch-familiar.

Allow me to introduce you to Isobele Dunlop, a 25 year old witch living in the countryside of England, year 1218. Isobele has been receiving dreams of warning. Her familiar shows her that a predatory power will soon infiltrate her home, causing all manner of distress. For the third night in a row, she’s certain this is no mistake.

Upon waking on that last account, instead of jumping from bed, she instead closed her eyes again and fell deeply into sensation, sinking to the border where she’s neither awake nor asleep. She shifts her mind and focuses on her familiar.

She speaks to it, “I have received your warnings, dear familiar. Show me what I shall need.”

Isobele remains deeply in sensation, focusing solely on her question.

Soon, she begins to see images forming in her mind. From blurry, static shapes and odd colors to a vivid and lucid picture; she see’s dandelions growing in a graveyard. There’s a welcoming breeze and the sun is shining.

The picture disappears and another begins to take shape. She see’s bramble growing along an iron fence. She is shown some other things as well, but we’ll focus on the plant helpers.

When nothing else comes, Isobele eases herself out of her trance, and gets out of bed. She gets dressed and grabs her satchel that she uses to store things she needs while out and about. After she closes the front door behind her, she takes a pause and goes into light sensation.

“Dear familiar of mine, pull me in that strange fateful way and lead me to find the things I shall need.”

She begins her journey down a road she hadn’t walked before. A few miles down, she sees what looks to be the entrance to a graveyard and as she approaches, see’s dandelions everywhere in sight. She approaches the plant. “As bright as the sun, happily growing to spite death.”

She says to the plant, “Dearest friend, I must gather a portion of you. Retain your virtues of the sun in that portion, and I shall gift you fresh blood; she gathers only what she needs of the flowers, leaving a a few drops of blood at the base of each plant in gratitude.

She continues in the same way with collecting what she had been shown. When she comes home, she creates several things from what she’s collected. She creates a wash for her home, an herbal bath for herself, and charms to hang in the rooms of her abode.

Thanks to her work and the aid of her familiar, plant allies and unmentioned curios, that big nasty never came to even knock on the door.

This method heavily involves the fetch-familiar, however, our next method only involves your senses. It’s also very easy and doesn’t necessarily require a fetch-familiar, but can include it. We’ll just use a very simple example of need here.

Let’s say you want to attract a lover to you. Red has long been associated with love and passion; for thousands of years as far as we have discovered. Yet, I have a feeling it may even go back much further than what is currently evident, into prehistory even. Why?

Fire.

Fire produces red hues, it’s hot, and it can burn uncontrollably. Much like the feelings of love and passion, which require no words to be felt.

So what comes to mind? Red flowers. What kind of flowers? Probably ones that have a sweet scent. They should probably also grow in pairs, groups, or have multiple blooms on a single plant. Why?

Because a lonely red flower probably prefers to be a lonely red flower. It might be better suited for spells involving self-love.

So now, you’ve deduced a particular plant-helper for the spell you need. It required no book and all that’s needed of you now is the field-work. This is where you can involve your familiar, if you have one.

So when you go out to find this flower, ask these following questions

1. Is it red?

2. Does it grow alone or in pairs, groups, or a single plant with lots of blooms?

3. Is it safe to touch or would it hurt me? If it is safe, is it soft or rigid?

4. Is it safe to smell or would it hurt me? If it is safe, does it smell good or bad?

5. Where is it growing? At a crossroads, a graveyard, next to a well, under full sun or shade, etc?

6. Is it safe to consume? If it is, is it sweet, bitter?

Luckily for you, you’ve come across a rose bush growing out of the cracks of two small boulders, growing in absolute defiance of the circumstance it had to suffer. This would be a powerful ally for the love spell you want to perform; but don’t think for a moment that you are limited to traditional plant associations. If you deduced a red flower that contains the qualities appropriate for a love work, use it. It will be no lesser powerful than the rose, unless it’s circumstance is different.

You can do this with anything, any spell. It requires no book, no known planetary association, just the powers of deduction and observation. It also helps to build a better relationship with the world around you; and when these plants are approached and gathered properly, will build a better bond with the spirits living in the lands.

In a future blog for paid members, I will write exactly how to approach the plants you need, and what to do in exchange. While some of it is covered here, it’s not the complete methodology.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading!

This post is intended for the majority of us who grew up with Christian backgrounds. We have been taught all of our lives that The Devil is the source of all evil, an angel cast from Heaven for his disobedience of god. We’ve been led to believe that he is man’s enemy, who’s only desire is to cause suffering and to drag souls to “hell.”

These are lies.

Who is The Devil?

He has many shapes and many names. Some names are so old, “only the trees can pronounce them.” The Devil acknowledges no opposition to some supreme god. He is man’s best friend, our strongest ally, and has been here long before Jesus was ever a whisper in the wind.

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In this article, I want to bring attention to a growing problem in both traditional and modern witchcraft, as well as the general Pagan umbrella. It is often done with sincere intentions, and may even look beautiful or meaningful in the moment, but what is left behind can become a burden on the very places being approached with reverence.

I want to stress this, for 99% of those who will read this article will consider themselves to belong to a nature-based religion or practice. We must do better. We cannot call ourselves eco-centric spiritualists or animists and turn around and desecrate wild places by leaving litter around. No, we pick litter up. We leave natural environments better than it was before our arrival. We protect our wildlife and local ecologies and to be blunt, doing otherwise creates a hypocrite.

I do not say this to sneer at anyone’s sincerity. Most people who leave things in the woods, beside rivers, at crossroads, in graveyards, or under trees are not trying to cause harm. They are trying to petition, honor, or complete spellwork. However, the trouble begins when the thing being given does not belong to the place it has been left.

A natural place is not an altar that can be walked away from without consequence. It is already full of living things, from the trees to the birds and the bees. Anything we leave there enters that living arrangement, whether we intend it to or not.

So what’s so bad about leaving stuff behind?

Well, it’s not so much about leaving things behind and more so about what’s being left behind. In the witch’s or magical practitioner’s arsenal, we have a variety of mediums to work with, much of which I still encourage usage of.

The witch bottle, for example. This apotropaic charm is a powerful first step into protecting yourself from predatory powers, and I suggest making more than one. However, let’s consider two of the main components.

Glass, the main component. In a natural environment, glass takes 4,000 - 1 million years to break down into sand. In the meantime, were you to leave a witch bottle and it became broken, it would risk the well-being of wildlife by injury or consumption if left near food offerings. Even if you were to bury it, there’s always the possibility that it becomes unearthed one day; and regardless of where it’s left, it’s doomed to break eventually.

Rusty iron nails, the important secondary component. Iron nails, depending on your environment, can take 20-50 years to break down. Comparatively, this isn’t very long, however, it still poses a risk to wildlife much the same that glass would.

While I do recommend to continue making such charms, I want to suggest that instead of burying them or leaving them in wild places, keep them with you. If your spell requires it to be left somewhere, choose a different vessel with different mediums. For example, you can easily grow or purchase gourds to act as the bottle. Instead of nails, you can use blackthorn stems. All it takes is a little creativity and a desire to respect your local ecologies and the living organisms within them.

Witch bottles and spell bottles aren’t the only issue, unfortunately. There are many creative souls in the Pagan umbrella, and one way that creativity is expressed is with “clooties,” or offerings to be left at sacred sites or natural places.

It has become a modern tradition to tie ribbons or plastic beads onto trees, or creating offertory objects while disregarding the material. More often than not, plastics and synthetic fabrics are included in their construction.

Here’s the tea. Plastic and plastic ribbons can take up to 500+ years to decompose, where as unnatural fabrics can take around 200. They also pose an immediate danger to wildlife, as some species can become entangled, or choked. The list of potential threats isn’t a short one.

So, if we can’t leave our well-intended offerings made with artificial materials, what can we do?

A lot. Right outside your door is an endless source of material. Branches to carve, moss for accenting, sticks for mawkins, clay for talismans, stones for weights or decorating. There’s a lot that you can gather to create offertory objects. The only limitations here is your own imagination.

Just because you aren’t using material from your local craft store, doesn’t mean that you can’t put your heart and soul into what you’re making (and you should be doing this, regardless.) Put everything you’ve got into it and give it you full attention. Don’t just throw it together, give it details. If you’re making a mawkin, give it a face, and natural fabric clothes. Put the effort in and I promise you, it will be well received.

Along with this, I want to change your perspective about what it means to choose natural materials over artificial. Some may think, “I want it to last and be a testament of my devotion.”

Let’s shift this thinking here.

What should make sense to us (or hopefully from this point forward, at least) is that unless nature can absorb it without posing risks, it shouldn’t be left behind. Do you think that local spirits will appreciate you putting wildlife at risk? What about poisoning the earth in which they reside? Rightfully, I think not… and honestly, we should know better, especially in our modern age with all of the information we have at our disposal.

Your offering should be taken into the unseen, where it will remain for all of eternity. There it will stand as your testament of devotion, keeping company of those you intended it for. Let the earth consume them through her powers of rot and degradation. Let go of your attachment to your hard work, transform that pain into an act of sacrifice; know full well that they will be impressed by your craftsmanship, for once it has returned to the earth, it is truly with them. It has transferred from our physical realm into the unseen, for all that is done here, is done below. One cannot exist without the other.

And best of all… nothing had to come into harms way for your most generous offering or your grueling spellwork. If that won’t make the spirits happy, I don’t know what will.

Be good out there y’all, and always leave any place you visit better than you found it.

No place is empty.

If you step outside into your yard or head to a local nature park, you haven’t just entered a natural environment or beautiful place. They are places full of an ecology of spirits in the land, trees, plants, water, stones, winds, and whatever else your senses encounter there.

Your home also has it’s own ecology of spirits. From the wood used to build it’s frame, to the land it’s built on; even spirits whom are attracted to dwellings and structures. You’re never truly alone no matter where you go.

When you enter places with these deeper understandings, it becomes an encounter. You encountering them, and they you. This is the start of opening an important door into spirit-relationism.

In this article, you will learn a very simple way to build a relationship with spirits hidden around you, whether on your property or a nearby natural area. Do not rush the process, take your and time and let things unfold.

Now that we’ve encountered a place, we should begin our relationship with these powers by frequently giving genuine reverence without expectation. Address them as “the hidden folk,” and speak from your heart. Tell them what you hope to accomplish and that you desire to build a relationship with them.

To forget this is to enter poorly, as it would not be wise to treat the indwelling powers as secondary to the sorcery you’ll be performing there. Their friendship matters because sorcery is attempted in their dwelling places. Without them, a charm may meet resistance, silence, backlash, or simply a cold lack of aid; with them, the place itself becomes a supporting power.

A little food or drink may be set aside for the spirits of the place. Things like bread, whole cream, butter, animal fats, tobacco, or strong spirits like Whiskey. The portion need not be grand. Small token amounts still matter when given consistently and with respect. Such giving belongs to an old etiquette of contact, one that remembers the spirits before asking anything of them.

_{(Image depicts an offering of wine and bread in a bowl)}

The same reverence continues in the way the witch takes from the land. Always ask before taking, be grateful for what is being taken, and always leave a gift of gratitude left in its place. These acts begin to shape the relationship and once strong enough, will become a mutually beneficial friendship, especially for the witch.

You don’t even need to leave anything behind, but I would suggest you begin to sooner than later . It will always pay off to keep a flask of whiskey or a lancet in your pocket. If all you have is your heart and your mind, a simple gesture of reverence gives that truth a bodily form. The hand moves to the heart, then to the brow, then outward to the landscape before you. By doing this simple gesture and leaving words of reverence, you are acknowledging the presence of those entities not recognized by most, and it’s a powerful thing to do.

Over time, as you continue to build relationship with these local powers, some of them will begin to approach you. They can teach you valuable things such as their names and things they like and dislike; and once the bond is strong enough, secret knowledge and the empowerment of your sorcery.

A word of caution though, we must be careful not to leap into finding a quick way to obtain their names or information before a relationship is well established. You’ll know when that time has come. Some spirits may not take kindly to being called by name from a complete stranger, and I’m sure you’d feel much the same in that situation. If you were to ignore this, I certainly would expect a negative response, in one form or the other.

Earning their respect and trust should always be at the forefront of the purpose for your reverence.

Always.

One of the easiest ways to connect to any space is by utilizing something called “Sensation.” Sensation is the deep, energetic field by which the body and soul receives and interacts with the world. It’s the feeling of you. I suggest that you do this before you do anything else. In fact, I suggest you practice this daily and as often as possible. It can be done anytime, but I personally do this before bed the most.

You do this by relaxing and focusing on all of the sensations of the body. From the top of your head, to the pressure under your feet. You must focus on every square inch of your body. Focusing on this for a few minutes will produce a buzzing or warm feeling stretching all over your body. That exact thing is your personal sensation field and once you’ve noticed it, you’re in a subtle trance state.

Remember, this will always be step one for most anything you’ll do sorcerously.

Now, If you really want to cause waves in a place, expand that sensation by turning your focus towards the world around you. Let your sensation mingle with the sensations of the environment that impress upon it. This is the most noticeable introduction you could possibly perform, as it is so rarely done these days that it will stand out like a light in the dark.

To feel the Sensation of the world is to feel one’s place within the greater community of life. As this skill deepens, hidden portions of the world will begin to reveal themselves in small and serious ways. A presence in darkness may be felt without being seen, or the air around a place may carry warning or welcome. These are just a couple of examples, but they could be important skills to have.

As you deepen your relationship with the ecologies of place, eventually, those interactions will begin to occur. They might begin showing up in dreams. You may begin to sense or see them around your home or the place you frequent, divination may suggest a strong relationship has been established.

When these signs have all lined up, you know your attempt at establishing a relationship has been successful, and now you can more seriously engage with them in your Craft.

So get out there. Go meet the gods hiding right outside your backdoor.

Honestly, I don’t go into occult shops very often. The last time I was in one was over ten years ago, and I remember walking in mostly hoping I would find statues that suited my aesthetics. I looked through tarot decks, bought some black candles and resin incense, and wandered around the way one does in those places, waiting to see if anything would speak clearly enough to come home with me.

That is usually my experience with them. I enjoy looking, and I am glad such places exist, but I rarely find much that is actually needed for Traditional Witchcraft. That isn’t an insult to the shop. Most occult shops sell according to what people are asking for, and what people are asking for is usually shaped by what is popular: Wicca, folk magic, ceremonial magic, and New Age spiritualism.

There are, of course, things worth buying. A good cauldron is not going to grow in the yard. Some herbs are hard to grow locally, or hard to find in a usable form. Candles are useful. Resin incense is useful.

Yet with few exceptions, a witch needs does not have to be bought at all.

This is the part I want to press on. Occult shops are not the problem, and purchased things are not the problem. The problem begins when witches become so used to buying their witchcraft that they stop looking for what can be found, grown, or gathered themselves.

And this is where the only store you’ll ever need comes in.

It is not really a store, of course. It is the yard, the garden, the ditch, the roadside, the woodline, the nature park, the creek bank, the lake edge, the beach, or whatever patch of the living world happens to be nearest to you. It will not have everything, but it will have far more than most people think to look for.

A witch needs materials, and a surprising amount of those materials can be found or grown close to home. The world is full of things that can be used in the witchcraft,, and many of them are lying around without price tags, packaging, or marketing copy telling you why you should want them.

Some things will be ready enough when you find them. Others will need to be cleaned, dried, cut, shaped, bundled, stored, or simply kept until needed. Gathering is part of the work, too.

Some things are worth buying. Some things may have to be bought. But the first instinct should not always be to walk into a shop. Sometimes the first instinct should be much simpler: step outside and see what is already there.

This is where the hand comes back into the work. When something has passed through your own hands, when you have gathered it, prepared it, altered it, and made it fit for use, the finished thing carries more of your force in it. You become imprinted into the (thing) as you had to take part in its creation, from beginning to completion.

That is the piece I think gets lost when everything arrives ready-made. There is nothing wrong with buying what is needed, but there is a difference between using a thing because it was available for purchase and using a thing because you recognized its worth, brought it home, and worked your soul into it as you created it’s shape.

A branch is not only a branch. It may become something carved, marked, sharpened, bound, or set aside for a future working. Stones may be gathered and arranged into sigils, circles, cairns, or simple markers for the work. Waters can be collected from rain, rivers, lakes, or wherever they naturally gather and move. Clay, ash, moss, leaves, vines, roots, bark, seed pods, thorns, bones, feathers, shells, and sticks all have their own possible uses.

There is no reason sorcerous material has to come ready-made from a store. If a witch needs a figure, a mawkin, a talisman, a charm, a marker for Witch-rings, or some rough image made in the likeness of the Master, the Queen of Spirits, or both, there are ways to make such things from gathered material. They do not have to be polished or pretty in the usual sense.

The more attention you give to the thing, the more carefully you gather, shape, bind, mark, or assemble it, the more strongly it begins to carry the purpose it was made for. Your time is in it. Your hand is in it. Your force is in it. By the time it is finished, it is no longer just something you picked up. It has become a little closer to you, and you… closer to the work itself.

You come home with a few sticks, a deer skull, Something dried, something fallen, something carried back because it seemed worth keeping. Maybe you knew exactly what you needed. But those things have already asked more of you than a receipt ever could. You had to get out. You had to search for what you needed. You had to shape it’s form from it’s wild shape.

That is a better beginning than any shopping cart.

However, this isn’t about Hollywood. This is about how “witch” has become overused, generic, and increasingly fantasized in a more modern age.

Witchcraft has become frustratingly synonymous with Wicca. When most people think of witchcraft, they think of crystals, chakras, a three fold law, love and light, vegans, and shallow aesthetically pleasing Instagram posts. It has been used by feminists for activism (hell yeah), spiritualists, psychics, ceremonial and folk magicians, and even Christians in a very recent and bizarre movement that genuinely puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Witch has become such a broadly used identity that you couldn’t spread it on toast.

Worse yet is that along the way, witchcraft was made to feel “safe” and about “becoming the best you.”

Well darlings, witchcraft is not safe and has never been about personal development.

True witchcraft has always and will always carry along with it elements of danger, for yourself and those around you. In this article, you will come to understand why.

Before I proceed, I want to touch on some things as this is a very sensitive post.

I am not here to attack anyone… with the exception of Abrahamic religion or Christians calling themselves witches. Sorry, gotta be real here, our worlds do not belong together and the fusion is as offensive to me as my statement is to those calling themselves such a thing.

I am not here to gatekeep. I am here to attempt to lift the veil of confusion. Anyone is more than welcome to call themselves a witch, but wouldn’t it be cool to be something more accurate to what you do?

I will personally do whatever I can to help you along your way towards witchhood if it’s you’re calling, but I cannot guarantee that your witching will ever occur. It was never meant for the masses.

Ultimately, the only gatekeepers on this road are the fates and yourself.

So… what is a witch then?

A witch is a person who exists in this world as something that feels “out of place.” This person will have strange qualities about them that make them stand out to those in the unseen; the very same qualities that will cause you to stand out against the crowd. It will give other persons a repulsive sense about you of unpredictability, strangeness, and even danger. You could be Snow White and bubblier than a glass of champagne (me), but if witching qualities exist within and about you, you will likely have few friends and the general public may want to steer clear of your strange energy.

But why do you make it sounds like such a negative experience?

I’m so glad you asked! Allow me to elaborate.

Everyone is effected by unseen forces. You yourself are an ecology of entities working together that make up who you are. Your mind, body, souls, the micro-biome of organisms and bacteria, and the fateful forces moving you through your life, to name a few. You are never alone, at any point. Never acting alone, at any point.

Beyond that, there are two forces that act upon the fabric of reality. They are the powers of Ektropy and Entropy.

Ektropic forces bring things together. Entropic forces take things apart. Both forces exist together, but one will always weigh more in different world-ages or stages in your life. A World-age in which Earth was being formed would be in a period of Ektropy. Ektropic forces are also the forces of the Titans, the primal forces human cultures inevitably sought to defeat or to tame. These forces are the world builders, the spark of life, The Great Rhizome Mother, The Devil himself, and the spirits in the unseen.

More succinctly, they are the forces of the Daemonic.

Entropic forces, however, are forces in line with what later cultures would call “Holy, Angelic, or Godly.” For the current World-Age for those of us within the grip of western culture and Abrahamic religion, the forces working upon the world are Entropic. It’s grip doesn’t end there. It’s also the natural flow of life: aging, sickness, and death. It’s loss, it’s the unraveling of all that ektropy had built.

To be an Entropic person means to be an ordinary one.

So, as you can probably imagine, witches are not creatures of Entropy.

Because we exist in an Ektropic period of time, we stand out. If you’ve ever been to a place of entropic power, such as a haunted house, you know something is different before you even step inside. Your instinctual alarm clock lets you know, “be alert.”

So, witches naturally have the same reaction from Ektropic people. To be entropic is to be something unusual, even if that something isn’t obvious on the surface. It’s to attract the attention of unseen spirits— and sometimes, predatory ones. This is part of the danger and why you and those around you can be put at risk.

As you open yourself up more and more to entropic powers, as more and more spirits notice you, the stranger your “vibe” becomes. The stranger the things occurring around you becomes.

This is why I suggest that unless you have a burning desire deep within you that can’t be ignored… walk away.

These forces aren’t the only thing that determines a witch. They play a major part, but there’s more that we should explore here.

A person destined for witchhood will have a raging fire burning within them to find something. You may not know what that is yet, but if that feeling grows stronger exploring the occult, you know you’re on the right track. You may also have had odd experiences throughout your life. More likely than not, those experiences would be spirit-related.

You may have had conversations with them in dreams, or consciously—if you have that ability. They may have taught you secret things, given you clues about what you’re destined for, etc. Some may have already gone through a death-like initiation and received your familiar, without even knowing the magnitude of what’s occurred. You might be able to do things like knowing what’s on someone’s mind or the hidden intentions of other people. You may even have a worldview unquenched by your spiritual explorations, even from within the spectrum of the occult.

It’s also true that you might not be able to do any of these things. You might just be some strange creature in the eyes of the ektropic people around you. That alone can be a clue.

So what have we gathered so far? Witches are ektropic creatures. We tend to repel entropic people. Our souls stand out to spirits. We likely have a small circle of likewise entropic friends. We have a burning desire that can’t be quenched while exploring the occult. We have strange encounters and unexplainable things happening in life.

So how do we wrap up what a witch is?

Like this. A witch is a person who has no choice but to walk in the traffic of the unseen. Witches are spirit-workers, building relationships and pacting with spirit-allies for mutual benefit. Spellwork involves the assistance of spirit allies and powers borrowed from those allies. Witches can do incredible things, at a cost.

So…if that’s what a witch is, what’s everything else that’s floating around out there?

Let’s briefly dig into this. Much of what we are exposed to today in social media, television, and the occult section in your local Books-A-Million are very rarely witchcraft related. You might be lucky and find authors discussing traditional witchcraft, but more often than not, it’s one or a combination of the following:

Folk magic, ceremonial magic, new age spirituality, or Wicca.

Remember, witchcraft is and has always been spirit-work or better yet, spirit-relationism.

Folk magic is magic using the idea of will & intent, utilizing sigils, herbs, and other curios to create charms and cast spells. Historically used by common folk of the low class. Evidence suggests appeals to God, Angels, or The Devil were commonly included. Practitioners of folk magic are folk magicians who were called a “cunning man” or “cunning-woman,” and collectively, “cunning folk.”

Ceremonial magic is magic involving free will, intent, and ritual engagement to summon and trap spirits in circles to receive something. Ceremonial magic was a system used by some individuals in high society during the Medieval period. You are more accurately a Mage or Magician.

New Age spirituality is a combination of beliefs with roots in both eastern and western philosophies. New Age spirituality is Spiritualism, and thus, a person in these practices would be called a “Spiritualist.”

Wicca is an earth based religion founded originally by Gerald Gardner. It’s a neo-pagan religion with roots loosely connected to folk believes and ancient European spirituality. It also blends eastern philosophies into it's spiritual teaching. A Wiccan can be a witch, but it is not synonymous.

With that, now I know that I’ve done my part, even if only a few people read this. I would have done something to fight against the confusion.

I hope you have enjoyed learning something today, and I hope that IF you don’t have that burning unquenchable fire within you, you find home in an alternative I’ve discussed here. I hope for nothing but your happiness.

Thanks for reading!

Not different in the charming, harmless way people sometimes say about children with active imaginations. I mean different in the sense that I was becoming aware of things that did not fit inside the explanations being handed to me. I was seeing and feeling things that challenged what my elders attempted to instill within me, and I always had questions waiting for them. Questions they could not answer in any way that satisfied me.

Looking back, I experienced my childhood in a different way than most children do. This isn’t to say that my childhood wasn’t good, or mostly “normal” by societies standards; yet under the activity of normal family life there existed a stranger current of interaction that would altar my perception and experience of the world around me.

Before we delve deeper, I want to make something clear. What I’m about to tell you is not to suggest that I by any means believe that children who perceive spirits are destined to become witches; nor do I believe that my earliest encounters with spirits led me by the hand to become a witch. No, what they did is make me see that the world is a lot bigger and a lot stranger than what my elders (and eventually society) wanted me to believe.

Knowing this in the depths of my soul, I rejected every spoon fed disparagement of the “supernatural” by anyone claiming some black and white version of the world I was becoming acquainted with. One based on experience, one vastly more vibrant and full of life and mystery than what was being shoveled around by ordinary folk.

I had various encounters with different kinds of entities when I was young. What my sister and I saw most often were what people today usually call “shadow people.” But that was not the full extent of it. I had a ghost friend. I encountered what I can only describe as a banshee. I saw things that looked like mawkins walking in straight lines, their bodies appearing almost like heat rising from concrete. I accurately described dead relatives and other deceased people, including details about how they had died.

I’d seen quite a lot for a child, a lot of things that the doctrines I was being exposed to couldn’t truly answer to my satisfaction and experience.

For the first 12 years of my life, I called myself a Jehovah’s Witness, a sect of Christianity in which my mother’s side of the family belonged to. As many of you know, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject Pagan practices in all forms and derivatives. Things like birthday celebrations, Christmas, and Halloween.

So if you can imagine, what I was capable of was something forbidden. My grandmother would often say, “You know, what you can do comes from The Devil. You should really pray to Jehovah to make it go away.” I would always respond with something like, “I don’t believe that for a second. I can do this for a reason.”

Little did I know, she was kind of right.

Up until I was 17, I was forced to go to Kingdom Hall gatherings and participate in bible studies.

I accepted none of their garbage. Not a single drop of it’s putrid drippings.

Each summer vacation, my sister and I would travel from Brewton Alabama to Milton Florida, the town between home and our father’s home in Navarre. It was always such a relief to be there. I was able to be more like myself and explore more openly.

In the summer of 2003, after getting together with my grandmother(dad’s mum) for a shopping spree, thirteen year old me came across the New Age section in our local Books-A-Million. I saw things there I’d never seen before, some of which seemingly aligned with my experiences with “the paranormal.” I was beyond excited.

In desperate need for answers and the satiation of my curiosity, I did something very naughty. I stole what appealed to me most.

Hey, I was young and desperate. It wasn’t a matter of morals.

Now, that stolen thing was Silver RavenWolf’s Teen Witch Kit.

I loved it.

It came with a quarts crystal, a pentacle necklace, and other items. The box itself even turned into an altar. It began this whole spiral into the occult world, of which I was discovering made me feel right at home.

For years after that, I continued deepening my understanding of Wicca, their witchcraft, and all of the accompanying New Age philosophies. I had even formed a high school coven, and established myself as it’s priest. At least, until Raymond Buckland’s big blue book of Alexandrian Wicca got me in trouble at school. Apparently nudity in any form equated to pornography.

My mom was thrilled.

By thrilled, I mean she burned all of my books and crammed bible verses down my throat.

Good times.

By 2006, when I was sixteen, I had begun growing discontent with Wicca. Something about it no longer satisfied me. I started to find it strange that Eastern philosophies were being folded into a practice supposedly extending back to ancient Europe. I began to dislike the way Wicca seemed to have an answer for everything, as though every mystery had already been solved, labeled, softened, and wrapped in pastel paper. I realized, there will always be hate, warmongers, racists, murderers, predators, prey….the list goes on.

I came to understand that your love and your “light” are earned, not dished out like cheap candy.

Anytime I heard this, my mind would hone in to the world around me.

“If rain can water a garden, but also wash away neighborhoods, surely there is more to be said here.”

“If human beings have the capacity for both good and evil, then surely other sentient beings may possess their own strange ranges of action and intention.”

“If the universe itself is absolute chaos when the cosmic clock is sped up, then maybe we are only fortunate to experience time slowly enough to mistake the world for something stable.”

These thoughts led me toward a truth that echoed everywhere around me, from the small things of daily life to the farthest reaches of the universe:

All things have the capacity to destroy or have a bad nature, just as much as they have the capacity to create or have a good nature.

Whether it was Christianity, Buddhism, or Wicca, I was tired of taking part in ideologies that played it safe. I was tired of systems that ignored everything except what they considered pure, holy, enlightened, or acceptable. I was tired of teachings that lacked the courage to face the dark. I was tired of spiritual paths that refused to perceive the depth of existing in a world shared with beings shaped in stranger ways than flesh and bone.

I saw the lies and I turned my back.

During my fall from Wicca, I became interested in Haitian Vodou. I spent two years learning from a Hounsi Kanzo, as well as a bokor. They taught me everything I came to know about the religion, and for a time, I felt very much at home there.

One day, toward the end of that period, my Hounsi Kanzo sister said to me, “Ya know… you are destined for another path.”

I laughed and brushed it off.

But she was right.

If you have noticed that I had my hands in several pots during certain periods of my life, you are correct. I truly did. Because not only was I practicing Vodou from around seventeen to nineteen, I was also practicing Buddhism as an established youth leader. I remained involved in Buddhism until I was twenty-four.

I was desperate to find what would satisfy the urge inside me.

And because I was desperate, I was all over the place.

Eventually, the spiritual dilemma began to settle. I drifted further away from everything. The noise quieted. The borrowed structures began to fall away. And in that clearing, I was finally able to hone in on the feeling inside me.

I questioned it.

I poked at it.

I listened.

And eventually, my mind drifted back to occult mysteries.

So I answered.

But this time, I decided I would approach things differently. I was no longer interested in witchcraft as a marketable aesthetic, a softened spiritual identity, or another system of easy answers. I became curious about what witchcraft looked like before it became saturated with foreign ideologies, modern fantasies, and mass-produced spiritual goods.

For one year, at the age of 24 until 25, I spent quite a good deal of time doing anthropological research. I was determined to uncover the true old ways with my own volition and determination alone. Yet, it would all result in very little. For as hard as I searched, all the hours I spent digging through human history, archaeological records, etc., I could not find clues and piece them together. I just didn’t know what to look for, or how to look at it.

One day, I finally just gave up.

Yet, something was telling me, “you’re on the right track. This is what will satisfy you.”

It was that urge speaking. When I thought about witchcraft, it grew stronger, almost hungrier.

The very day after I admitted my defeat, I found an author who successfully did this research. He found and pieced together the clues that I couldn’t find, rejected ideologies that didn’t truly belong, and uncovered mysteries that were evidently important to the spiritual lives of ancient Europeans.

That author is Robin Artisson. The first book I ordered from him was “Letters from the Devil’s Forest.” His works have changed my life forever and have offered much clarity to this lost soul. It finally satisfied that compelling force within, ever thirsty for fulfillment.

That day I reached out to him, told him everything I had attempted and how grateful I was for having stumbled quite randomly into his work. We stayed in touch, became friends, and found myself within a Covenant I never thought I’d ever be lucky enough to be a part of.

Now here I stand, witched. A cursed blessing that few are ever really granted, and none should ever want.

I knew then that I had arrived where I belonged. Fate took me on a journey and fate brought me right to where they intended me to be from the very beginning.

At last.

To my good friend Robin, should you ever read this, thanks again for everything.

You are the absolute goat.

I cleaned the house, did laundry, washed the dishes, and moved through the usual motions of life without any sense that something was approaching. I had not spent the day thinking about my fetch. Truthfully, I had hardly thought about it at all that week.

About an hour and a half before I had to leave for work, I decided to lie down and take a nap, but what came over me as I slipped into the spell of rest was not sleep.

It was something closer to being dead.

I was drawn into a cold, empty, black void. My life, my body, who I was… there was nothing that I clinged to; nothing to inspire me to remember who I was before I became this…entity floating in an abyss. The cold was palpable, but it did not hurt nor chill me. It belonged to that place, and in that moment, so did I.

I was aware, but not in the same awareness we have in our breathing lives. There were no ordinary thoughts moving through me, no inner voice, no chain of words. Knowing came differently there. It did not feel like thinking. It felt like an arising awareness.

Around me moved spirits made of dim and shifting lights, appearing out of the dark fabric of the space around us. They changed form again and again, appearing briefly before being swallowed back into the darkness, only to emerge in some new shape. I knew where I was as if I had never left, but the thought of who I was never came.

The silence in this place was absolutely deafening.

Then the darkness shifted right before me, a sense of something noticing me became overwhelming.

Dim lights drew together and formed the faint outline of a canine. It was barely visible, but unmistakable. In that moment, everything else fell away. Just the beast and I.

From somewhere deeper than speech, the question arose within me: Are you mine?

It was not spoken in words. No, words felt like sensation extending outward, like a strange invisible connection. The beast watched me in silence, and again the awareness rose: Are you the fetch I seek?

Slowly, it began to come toward me. Its body shifted within the dim light as it moved, never holding one solid shape for long. Closer and closer it came, until it was within about twelve feet of me.

Then, all at once, it was taken back into the darkness.

So was every other light-bearing thing around me.

What followed was the strangest sensation I have ever felt and I surrendered to it completely. Part of me rose as another part of me sank, and I was divided into three parts of self.

Then the middle part of me that remained where it started just… vanished.

It was not hollow. It was not empty. It was simply gone, as though it had been cleared away to make room for what was coming. In this place, you didn’t really think in the way we do as cognitive beings. Thought did not work that way there. Communication was instantaneous and wordless. I saw, I encountered, I connected.

Once the splitting was finished, the wolf returned., Suddenly, the wolf leapt towards me, and once again I was suspended in darkness, not a single light in sight.

I felt the wolf enter that empty space with a gentle force, filling it with what felt like fire and electricity. The buzzing sensation was tremendous and was even felt amongst the other two separated parts of my soul.

Once it was there, I felt my separated selves being pulled back together again, like a sandwich of buzzing and electricity. I felt a sensation of being made whole again, yet..something was different. Something about myself had changed.

The next thing I knew, from somewhere beyond that black stillness, I heard loud rapping knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound was deep and heavy, and it reverberated through the pitch-black void I had become a part of.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Suddenly, I began falling, as if an invisible trap door had been right under my ghostly feet.

I dropped faster and faster through the dark, rushes of air tearing past my ethereal body. The fall seemed endless, as though I would never reach the bottom of it. Then, all at once, I jolted back into myself.

My eyes snapped open and I began gasping for air, as if I had not breathed at all during my absence. The sensation of wind still rushed across my face, and the bed bounced beneath me as though it had just caught the full weight of my return.

Again, the knocking came.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I sat up in bed, trying to steady myself enough to answer the door. The timing could not have been worse.

It was my mother stopping by to drop off some food. Thank the fates, I thought. I told her that I had been napping and wasn’t filling good, and shortly thereafter, she left. Wasting no time, I went straight back to bed, as I was still disoriented from what had just occurred.

That was when I noticed it.

The burning.

The pressure.

The strange otherness filling my body.

Fire and electricity moved through me, alive beneath my skin. The thing that had entered me in the dark had come back with me, and now that I was in my body again, I could feel it fully, moving around my chest and stomach like a hot coal or a candle flame.

“What the hell? What the actual hell?” I said, completely stunned.

And then I understood.

My fetch beast and I have finally bonded.

The moment the realization came, the fire inside me grew stronger. Power moved through me with such force that I felt high from it, as though it were consuming my flesh. Goosebumps covered every inch of my body. I was electrified.

A wolf.

Of all the forms it could have taken, I never expected my fetch beast to come as a wolf. They say never to guess the identity of your familiar, and yet I had convinced myself mine would come as a serpent…and wouldn’t ya know it, I was wrong.

I neither fret nor regret this union in any way.