Forgotten Thought Forms.

Here is a question to ponder. How many spells have you worked?

They all used a focus of some form. That focus created an energetic pattern called a thought form.

Physics tells us that energy can not be destroyed, only transmuted into another form. Thus, somewhere in the Universe, those little patterns are bouncing around. That's why no matter how obscure the deity, calling on them tends to get results if ever they were worshipped by enough people.

But, how about those little patterns you created? They tend to hang around their creator: you.

The other night I was not quite up to a healing spell I needed to do and I happened notice a plastic box of scented votives I have not opened in a while. So, curiosity being the domain of both cats and Druids, I opened it to see what lovely scents awaited.

A few years back I worked with a group doing healing and used a particular scented candle as a carrier for the energy. Oddly enough, and I find this seems to happen constantly, the moment the healings really start working, someone blows the group apart and more often than not, it is the organiser leaving me to wonder what is really going on out there in the world. I have even gone so far as to research a few of the organizers and didn't like what I found.

But, I took the candle out because this was my channel and I wondered if even with the group completely blown apart the healing pattern was still out there. Yup! I immediately connected to it, found it fully functional and nicely charged. Now, it is my thought form.

Is this the ultimate recycling? Try it and find out. Why go to all the trouble of creating an energetic pattern every time when you can just tap in the old ones, reinforce them and use them?

What do you think?

The Goddess Columbia

I know most of my Goddesses but when the local Christian nuts decided to hold a month long prayer vigil to discredit her in the nation's capital I found myself muttering: who is she?
Then a large number of pagans jumped on board creating an event to honor her. Who is she? Is my education lacking?
Nope. Columbia a created goddess by the Masons and illuminati to represent the ideals of freedom. Considering she was used as the embodiment of Manifest Destiny and in two wars as what our boys were fighting for, one would think she would be right up the Christian Rightwingnut's alley.

Bargaining

I'm not really sure where this came from but I suspect the Judeo/Christian faith as most older faiths have better sense.

An accomplished spell worker came by and had a question about her work. It seems she does everything right but she gets "some" return on the spells for herself, whereas for others, they work completely. That's strange I thought as I let her continue to ramble sort of half listening when my ears pricked up.

"You what?"

She always offers a bargain when she is doing spell work for herself pretty much along the lines of giving something up, like a favorite food, if this will just happen.

"Ah, I do believe I see the problem. Stop bargaining."

What I did not explain was the why of it.

We share this dimension with any number of creatures of energy. Some are not so nice. You have all heard the horror stories attached to Ouija boards when not used with a proper circle or invocation of protection. Those spirits are always hanging about just waiting for someone to blunder into them.
Start volunteering to hurt yourself by giving up things or preforming some task and their little ears get really BIG. They can affect the physical and they are just plain ornery. So, they will give you a little of what you ask for and wait to see what else you will do to yourself for more. Soon, you attract an audience of these lower level entities for their entertainment only.

And then you attract something, bigger, meaner and more powerful and that is when your happy little bargaining turns really nasty.  They can majorly alter this universe. They can hurt people directly. Suddenly your little temper tantrums really have effect on others, to their detriment, and you start losing energy, become unable to get up in the day time (they work best at night) and finally are just plain sick.
Next thing you know some psychic says, "Did you know you have entities attached to your aura sucking you dry?"
No matter what the price tag, remember this: the old ways of baths for purification, fumigation, bell, book and candle work the best and if it just involves waving hands over you, you might want to get really professional help.

Sodalite

I was kicking around in my mess, mainly because George knocked a box of odds and ends over and I saw a bag of this speckled blue and white tumbled stones that reminded me of the blue and white porcelain dishes. When I looked at the tag it said: Sodalite Quartz. Well, I had never heard it called that before so I decided a little research was in order.
It belongs to the silicates family and is seldom used as anything but cabs because it has poor cleavage and uneven to conchoidal fracture. That means you can't cut it like a most gemstones. It's hardness is 5.5 to 6.
That last number is very important if you storing your stones together in a bag. If you mix soft with hard stones, you will scratch the soft stones.
Quartz is SiO2 which is an oxide and has a hardness of 7.
Technically, Sodalite and Quartz would be distant cousins. Sodalite is closer to Lapis Lazuli. Both are sodium aluminums with the same hardness and both are used to access the subconscious or deeper layers of consciousness.
With that little digging completed, I scratched Quartz off the tag.
Thus, if your question in a working is whether you can get off using Sodalite (which is relatively inexpensive) as a substitute for Lapis Lazuli (which can be really pricey) the answer is yes. However, Lapis usually has gold in it and you can't substitute sodalite if you are using it in a money spell.

Dark Magick

Dark or black magick is just that, no matter what name you want to try and white wash or justify it with. You, and only you, will pay the price even if you pay someone else to do it.
Let's talk about what constitutes the Dark Arts. They are not defined as for personal gain but as attempting to force someone to do something against their will or against their best interests or harming another or working against the greater good. The last will get you the least smut on your soul as most of us are not capable of seeing that far into the future.
Let me give you an example of some very black working all prettied up in the" for your own good" category and the "we really didn't know what we were doing so we really, really screwed someone up good" secondary category.
Trust me, the payback is always bad. Ignorance is no excuse.

A gentleman came to me because he was having a spate of "bad luck" that was driving him to financial ruin and his friend, whom I had counseled, recommended me. He really didn't understand how exactly these nice "church ladies" could be "cursing" him. However, since my friend had almost lost his life to the workings of a similar group he knew what he was seeing.

Unlike the "wizard for hire" bunch, I question my potential clients carefully and I have the training to get answers. I was totally puzzled. The problem was simply that the mother did not want her daughter involved with him. Okay, here is a man who owns his own business, car and home, is financially solvent and good looking to boot. I could have five women fighting over him with a phone call. So, I bluntly asked exactly what was wrong with him. He replied, "I'm a Presbyterian." That caused uncontrollable head shaking and eye blinking on my part. "WHAT?????"
Then I asked exactly what these women were doing to him and how this "mother" convinced them to do it and by the way, who are they? It turns out the "they" was a prayer circle in a little Fundamentalist Church. "They" were meeting twice a week to "pray" that he be stopped from dating her daughter and that her daughter quit working for him.

Now, let me explain quickly why this IS the DARK ARTS. There is no difference between praying, chanting and standing on your head imagining or casting a well crafted circle,  lighting incense and invoking your chosen God/desses. The problem with this group is they were totally uneducated in the arts they were invoking. By leaving the prayer open ended (he be stopped from dating her daughter) they left the door wide open for any entity listening to use any means (including killing this man) to do the job. Without a circle of protection, they had left an open door for anything and anything always has a price. They left an equally open door on the daughter quiting the job and as a result, he was suffering a myriad of health problems (and this was a healthy guy) preventing him from "dating" and his business was going under hence the daughter not working  for him would be because there would be no business. This would hurt not only him, but the community his business serviced.

I asked how he got into this mess and his reply was the daughter rebelling against the restrictive faith of the mother had picked him out for her little rebellion and since she was pretty and a good sales person, at the time he didn't see any harm. He really didn't want to date her in the first place but she chased him. She had spent a week convincing him to hire her on a commission basis with the old "what have you got to lose" argument. He was quickly finding out what he had to lose.

So, I taught him cleansing and basic protection magick, none of which conflicted with his religion. In the end, he had to sell the business to get rid of this mother/daughter team from Hades as when he tried to fire her, she went to the prayer circle with a list of grievances and they then redoubled their efforts to now "punish him". That was when they really stepped over the line into the Dark Arts and I have no doubt paid the price.

So, what happens when you step over the line?
It is all energy and energy is neutral. It is all how you use it. When you attempt to go against another's best interests or desires, you have to use more energy than just going with the flow. One person can only channel so much energy so unless you are very skilled "vampire" you are going to weaken. First your aura goes and eventually your body follows but your mind is going to go before that happens. Without your aura to shield your mind, and severely weakened, you are prey for every creature of the other realms who wants a snack of your energy and sanity. There are plenty of them.
A group of people can raise more energy than the individual members taken singularly. One thing every High Priestess knows is that channeling the energy of a group is like walking a moving tight rope that was greased. That's why you don't get the head piece by passing a written test. Even with a well organized group, one person out of it that night can cause the energy circle to tilt and if the circle breaks, the energy feedback is, well, Hell. Headaches, nausea, weakness and dizziness are the weaker of the symptoms of a circle gone bad and that includes a prayer circle. There may be a temporary "high" and then the symptoms hit anywhere from an hour to a day later. I have seen people literally thrown to the ground and bounced off walls. The problem in prayer circles is simple. How well do you know the people you are working with? Everyone is nicely praying for poor Mable's recovery when one person suddenly thinks, oh, and could you get rid of my daughter's fiancee. Suddenly, your healing circle dipped into the Black Arts and poor Mabel is going to pay right along with you. Someone always pays.
With a good High Priestess, we know the moment the energy moves to a new level and will stop it. Our members also know the danger if the circle unbalances before the energy is released and aren't gong to play add a little prayer to it. We work in a purified and sealed environment. Hey, there is a reason the Pope is swinging that censor and chanting in Latin around the altar and those priests and choir boys and going up and down the aisles and around the perimeter of the Church at all major services. Too bad your pastor can't speak Latin and doesn't know why. The local witch knows why. He's not going to take the chance that the local JC impostor shows up to Mass. He's making sure he gets the clear, unfettered and open line to the real thing.
What happens if you persist on this path aside from insanity, rocking back and forth in a padded cell while watching the local entities eat you? You mean that didn't scare the crap out of you? Well, you get to die a long and lingering death because you aren't as valuable in their world as ours. Here you are food. Once you cross over, all the things you did arrive to haunt you and unfortunately for you they will be really, really real. You will find you are virtually a slave in the afterlife to whoever or whatever is stronger than you and there will be someone stronger than you waiting for you. I have been told the pain is excruciating because your soul is not intact and you feel like you are constantly hungry and  thirsty trying to replenish it. Shall I go on or are you getting the idea that anyone who tries to rope you into these things is no friend of anyone but themselves.
The bottom line is you wouldn't play with explosives with a group of people smoking and who have no knowledge of safety precautions. Don't play with energy the same way.

I REALLY want to celebrate on the moon phase but...

How many times have we all said that and life and job just won't let us do it?
Don't panic. The Full and New Moons are considered to last 3 days, one before and one after so you have some breathing room.
Quarter Moons' turning lasts about one minute but the phase lasts a week. You have time.
Eclipses last at most about an hour but their effects continue to next eclipse. Unless it is a really nice eclipse energy, I don't care for them and actively avoid doing magick during their happening time. I will pick a good day astrologically to do the work and tap into the eclipse energy. It's not going anywhere for a while. This last eclipse energy is in Cancer and that is anything home and family and skirting issues. Remember, the crab moves side to side when using these energies and retreats into its shell when threatened. It seldom carries through on threats.

Exits and Entrances

Whoever is building houses needs a BIG lesson in Feng Shui. So, listen very carefully. A house must have one entrance and ONE exit. Any more and the energy enters the house and gets confused, runs around goes out bounces back in and you suddenly find you can't make up your mind, you are jittery, your money is leaving faster than it is coming in and your relationships are in the crapper.
Here is the cure: designate one back door. Outside of the other doors, place a mirror facing into the house so the energy bounces back in and continues in its natural cysle through your home.
If you have two entrances, pick one. Place a mirror inside the house facing out at the other one so the energy cannot barrel through both doors like a run away freight train and mow everything in your house down.
What about garages? In the overall scheme, garages are often treated as a part of the house and if you are dong that, you have to make adjustments because that is one really big opening for energy to fly through. I have always designated my garage as a separate entity, with its own entrance and exit. I keep the door going into the garage from the house mirrored off, so the energies do not enter or exit through it. It has its own side exit. That way I can isolate the energe and not have a huge money leak.
I know all these sliding glass doors are a big selling point but you should have learned with the Donald as an example that lying is the main talent of real estate agents. First off, they are one huge security risk that even with the unbreakable glass, can be jimmied off the track in a matter of minutes unless you want to put the security bars on them every time you leave the room. They are also a huge energy leak, literally. They both heat up and cool down your rooms really fast. Lastly, the first hurricane that makes an approach, you are going to find they are really, really expensive and difficult to secure. Even if you are feeling safe with the unbreakable glass, the pressure from the wind can pop them right out of the frame and you aren't going to be getting them back in with 120 mph of wind pushing you back. So don't fall for spiel. There is a reason old Florida homes do not have sliding glass doors and it is one darned good one.

Notes for those who do workings or spells....

Around the second time someone shows up on your doorstep needing a curse on someone because they are "cursing" them, you might want to consider you have a nutcase on your hands and start doing benighn spells instead of the curses. It would be a really good idea not to tell them because they will just move on to the next practitioner and curse YOU! Consider it a case of self preservation.

Sigel and Seal Notes

As important as it may be to get your time and day correct in their drawing, getting the colour right is critical. Thus, you really need one of the more expensive books to give you that information.
An interesting book is The Grimoire of Armadel. I like to use it.

Those little things that get to you...

Have you been losing things lately? Are things breaking?
The first step is to determine if there is one thing you keep losing far more than anything else. What do you do with that thing? How important is it?
For example, my hubby finally lost his phone for what seemed like for good. He had been losing it at least once a day for a few weeks. This time it was really gone. Over a week later, he found it neatly packed in a box in a box of stock. There is no way he would have consciously done that. Within 15 minutes of finding the phone, he lost it again. This time it appeared an hour later.
The important thing is that the phone is used for my business and he forwards the shop line to it when we out so we don't miss any calls. We use his phone because I am virtually deaf on a phone and can't understand much that is said. Losing the phone put a dent in business.
For a couple of weeks, business had been going down hill. If we smudged the area and did a money spell, immediately we would get customers and I mean immediately. If we didn't, we could sit here for hours and the phone wouldn't even ring with the usual telemarketers. The simple fact that a little magick and the business would start up indicates there is something magickal being done to us. If it were just the normal ebb and flow of business, a customer wouldn't show within minutes of doing the clearing and money bringing spells.
So, we simply smudged the phone and it hasn't gone missing since.
As Marie always said, when one too many things go wrong, someone is working a mojo on you.
Hubby asked me if I had normally been doing the smudging and spells before I had to take the year off for cancer treatment and I really had to think back. Then I remember that the last year, it had been a constant struggle and these rituals were my morning openings every blasted day. To this he said: "This is BS. It has to stop."
A warning seems to have stopped the person who was doing it, but should it start up again, I am not bothering with a warning. I am swatting and I swat hard. That is mainly because I hate to do it so I make sure the person never bothers me again.
So, if you are having the same problem with things going missing. When you find them, smudge them. If it immediately stops, you have someone working something on you. If it just keeps up, you are either really absent minded or you may have a faery trying to get your attention.