I love old spells. I mean, that’s a pretty big part of being a Traditional Witch for me. That being said, old spells are not always good spells. You need to do some research when dipping into old books and folkloric spells and I have a story that really demonstrates why.
I was considering doing a spell I found in Gemma Gary’s “Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways.” Gemma Gary seems like a fairly trustworthy source. On page 128, Gary gives a recipe for “Witch Oil,” which is made by combining turpentine, dragon’s blood and madder root in one container and, in a fireproof vessel heated over the coals of a fire, linseed oil, mandrake, mugwort, and vervain. The two are then combined and left to sit for six months. I thought this would be a wonderful spell for reddening the bones (as we are getting onto the dark time of year). Gary notes that this “Witch Oil” could be used to anoint the self or to anoint tools.
Well I did a bunch of research and, oddly enough, the two ingredients I knew the least about here were turpentine and linseed oil.
Now that I did a bit of reading, I sincerely hope this is an old recipe from back in the day. Because if it isn’t, it’s utterly insane. Gary writes that this oil can be used to annoint the human body. Well, both turpentine and linseed are highly caustic materials. When I looked up some images of turpentine and linseed oil cans online, they had GREAT BIG messages warning the user to avoid contact with the skin and eyes. I have known some old, grizzled men who would wipe oil off their hands with turpentine. But I ain’t one of them.
Perhaps even more seriously, linseed oil, apparently, can spontaneously combust! According to several articles online, rags and papers soaked with linseed oil can suddenly burst into flame because linseed oil heats up as it dries (so to speak, that’s not an exact explanation of the chemical process, but that’s as far into it as I want to go). And that’s a pretty big deal. It is definitely something worth knowing before working with linseed oil. This isn’t to say it can’t be used safely – it has been used for centuries. But you have to know what you are doing. And you probably shouldn’t heat it over a bed of hot coals.
I will probably create this recipe, but will swap out these potentially dangerous oils for simple kitchen oils (olive, almond, etc). The important lesson here is to do your research. When working with old spells, sometimes swapping out ingredients is not just an option to consider, but is downright mandatory. Do you research. Don’t scar yourself or burn your house down.
I just had this hyper-realistic dream and like. I don’t even know what to make of this lmao
I was sitting in this park, on a bench, looking up at the night sky and all the stars and stuff, and I blinked and suddenly the entire sky was different. I’m talking different constellations, the sky absolutely packed with billions more stars, some so close they’re massive. I’m like wtf and suddenly I realise there’s an old man sitting next to me, dressed in like 1940s clothing, also looking up at the sky.
before I can ask him if he’s you know, noticed, he speaks, without looking away from the sky.
“this is what the universe really looks like,” he tells me.
“oh,” I say. a pause. “…can you put it back?”
he smiles and nods. I look up. the sky has gone back to normal.
“what do I do with this information?” I ask, looking at him again.
he turns his head and, smiling, looks me dead in the face. "be careful.“
is it weird that as i got through the tweet my understanding of it lessens?
If you had a recent ancestor who went through starvation it actually altered their genetics and may have passed down genes to you that make you hold on to fat. So this tweet is more accurate than you’d think.
MY FUCKING GREAT GRANDFATHER LITERALLY FLED LEBANON DUE TO A FUCKING FAMINE AND MY GRANDMOTHER AND DAD AND I ARE ALL FAT AS FUCKING HELL.
FUCK ME RUNNING I DID NOT KNOW THIS.
…That’s going to apply also to anyone whose recent ancestors voluntarily dieted a lot, isn’t it. Diet culture long-term causes more obesity. Sure, it takes decades to show up, but anything you’d hear today about childhood obesity would reflect that. Exercising is still very good for most people, but trying to lose weight shouldn’t be the goal for most people, because a) it usually doesn’t work very well or it comes back and b) your kids or grandkids could end up with extra wonky metabolisms. (And while fat itself is actually not that much of a problem if you keep your fitness up, it can be hard on your joints. That’s actually the biggest health risk if you’re “small end of fat,” under 40, and active–joint problems.)
THAT MOTHERFUCKING ARTIFICIAL FAMINE THAT’S IT I’M GONNA FIGHT THE ENGLISH
Honestly, “I’m gonna fight the English” is a good reaction to a lot of things.
the ‘obesity epidemic’ in america is probably due to a combo of our grandparents living through the great depression and our parents being teens and young adults during the days of twiggy and heroin chic and the rise of diet culture.
combine that with the fact that gen x was the last generation allowed to play outside, pretty much, and the fact that everybody nowdays is working service jobs that exhaust them without working their muscles, and there is basically no way on earth you’re going to get a fit and healthy population without changing the basic structure of our society.
don’t fall for the hype. don’t focus on weight. it’s actually far more dangerous to be underweight than overweight. even with what is clinically defined as ‘morbid obesity’ it’s possible to be healthy as a horse, if your bone structure and metabolism are set up for it and you’ve got lots of muscle to support it.
on top of that, the charts for ideal weight are at least a generation out of date. they were compiled based on a population that didn’t regularly get enough dairy and fresh produce, at a time when girls didn’t do athletics in school. young women in the 1960′s were measurably smaller than young women today. their bones were thinner, they had less muscle mass, their shoulders were more sloped, they had a smaller lung capacity – society discouraged them from being physically active past the age of ten or twelve, and they finished their physical development in a sedentary setting.
boys were plenty active, but just like the girls, they were eating just about nothing but red meat and starch and some mushy greens with the vitamins boiled out. the thing where the poor get fat because sugar and fat are cheap wasn’t really happening yet, especially in rural areas; a farm kid’s diet was beef and wheat in the north, pork and corn in the south. “eat your vegetables” was such a hard sell because everything else was expensive and bland and overcooked. you’ve seen the godawful cookbook excerpts from that time. mushy green beans and fried spam on a bed of mashed potatoes, seasoned with nothing but a pinch of white pepper.
sorry, that was kind of a tangent. i guess my point is, even the people who ate well by the standards of the time were malnourished compared to the standard of today. your lunch of a matcha cucumber smoothie and a cobb salad with one ounce of ham, one ounce of turkey, and 15 kinds of fresh vegetable, would give them the explosive shits because they’ve never had that much fiber in one place before. there’s more vitamins and antioxidants in your black bean fajita dinner than they saw in a week.
so first of all, the idea of trying to be the same size and shape they were is absurd.
and second, if malnourishment in one generation primes the next two for protective fat retention, the combination of that and the incredible wealth of nutrition we have available to us today is obviously going to make us HYUGE.
instead of fighting it, we should embrace it. we could all be HUMAN BOULDERS OF MIGHT.
Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens except you can hear it inexplicably playing – by a whole orchestra no less – while lost in the forest at night. You have a gut feeling that you shouldn’t, but following the music seems like your best bet at no longer being lost. Nevermind that you keep hearing footsteps around you that aren’t yours – there’s no one there, no matter how many times you check.
Fisherman: Friend, what do you want? [weasel sniffs at a closed bucket with fish] Hungry for some fish, aren’t you? Maybe I should give you a fishing pole? Eager beaver. Let me open it. [weasel is busy digging under the bucket. fisherman gently pokes it] Hey, there is a lid up here. Come on, pick any you want. [weasel grabs a fish and runs away] Hey, no “thank you”? Well, you’re welcome.
Go with your gut and intuition, and find out through trial and error what they like and what they don’t. Ask them! They’ll teach you.
Ask them, and pay attention. Divination helps, done by yourself or a trusted reader, but it is an aid – look at the reflections of your god in the world, and your dreams and intuition.
As a rule, an entity’s pleasure or displeasure is abundantly clear, and the connection forged between a deity and its believer who not only reads an appropriate book but walks with them in their heart and life is beautiful.
My decks, when I put them in order, have to be majors, cups, pentacles, wands and swords. When I get a new deck and the minor’s are out of order, it irks me and I must fix it.
Do you have a particular preference?
Cups, swords, pentacles, wands, but it’s a bit of a loose preference
Eh, I don’t have a preference, but when I do put them in order I go by Swords, Pentacles, Wands, and then Cups
(but I associate swords with fire and wands with air, not the standard, but that’s the vibe I get personally!)
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