When I first started studying this path years ago, there were no resources. No modern resources, that is. I had to resort to fifteenth-century necromancy guides, and could only find modern practitioners through blogs and chatrooms. There are no books on death witchcraft, and in the past year, resources on this path have risen in demand. So I decided to write one.
This beginner’s guide to death witchcraft includes:
techniques for handling fear of death
working with death energy
sensing spirits of the dead
communicating with spirits of the dead
gathering grave dirt
protection techniques
offerings and assisting the dead
a full tools list spanning five pages
All of this is hand-made and written by me. All original artwork. Professionally bound, high quality paper, first edition. 100 copies available.
You may choose either a peach or pink cover.
Thank you to all who have encouraged and inspired me with your questions and curiosities of death witchcraft. You’ve truly changed my life for the better. ♡´･ᴗ･`♡
Us witches have an almost compulsive thing for cleansing. Feeling bad? Cleanse. New tool? Clense. Long trip? Cleanse. Buying herbs? Cleanse. Finished ritual? Cleanse. New moon? Cleanse.
And, I mean. I’m not one to speak. I’ve done two major posts talking about alternative cleansing (that you can see here and here), but after seeing some people talking about when to cleanse, I thought I’d say something about it.
Here’s the thing: You don’t need to cleanse *all* the time.
Cleansing gets rid of accumulated energy in a certain object, place, or person. It restores it to its original state, to a point of neutrality.
This also means that cleansing anything you’ve charged will get rid of that extra energetic boost. Sun charged crystals become simple crystals, moon water becomes simple water, etc.
I sun charged my Art Nouveau tarot deck before I started using it.
So it’s important to note that while cleansing is fundamental and useful, sometimes it’s not necessary and even not recommendable.
Instances in which you should definitely not cleanse are:
When acquiring an antique: cleansing it will make it as if it where brand new (energy wise). So there’s no point on in being an antique. TRUST YOUR INTUITION. If you bought/found/got the thing because it called to you, believe you can handle its energy. Don’t cleanse “just to be sure”.
I found this old dagger/letter opener and didn’t cleanse it. Instead, I bound it to me and now I use it as my athame.
When something gets passed down to you: Inherited objects carry a history. Like in the previous case, you should try to hold onto that energy. However, in this scenario you already have an idea of what the item’s past was like, so you can choose to let go of it or not.
This ink bottle and calligraphy pen belonged to my grandmother when she was in elementary school back in the 1940s. Cleansing them would get rid of her influence and they’d just be old writing instruments.
Divination tools: sometimes divination tools have their own energy, and unless someone else has touched them, cleaning the slate is unnecessary. Arguably, our tools grow with experience, like us. By cleansing them, they go back to the beginning. This is why some witches never allow anyone to touch their tools.
I found this old, rusty key, and I use it during my bone readings. I don’t cleanse it since I don’t let anyone else touch it. I feel it has a history, and a personality that cleansing will simply erase.
Working with body parts and even plants: when the past of the dead object is relevant, cleansing it defeats the purpose. A cleansed cat skull doesn’t carry the essence of that cat, it’s just generic, a random cat skull. No history, no story. This is especially important to remember when doing bone readings. Cleansing (not the same as cleaning) the bones strips away the portion of the soul they belonged to. We DON’T cleanse bones for this reason. In fact, some witches believe that bones are the only divination tools that are safe to be handled by others because they’re not ours to begin with. Every bone reading is a favor asked to a long gone life. If the soul has an issue with whomever is handling it, then the bones simply won’t answer their questions.
Pieces of my bones collection.
Ask yourself if cleansing is necessary before doing it. What do you expect will come out of a cleanse? Will it improve the status of the item?
This also applies to places, including haunted places. Is the entity doing any harm? Why are you kicking it out?
Sometimes, preexisting energies will bring a lot to the table. Let yourself trust the influence of the ones that came before you. Instead of cleansing the item, try re-purposing or transforming the energy.
Summarizing: Cleansing, good. Cleansing too much, missing opportunities.
There is definitely such a thing as over cleansing. Make sure you’re not doing it to your spells, too, and sapping away all the energy before it can do its job!
There’s been some discussion, and I actually had the pleasure of having a very pleasant conversation with a polytheist from Greece, about how they use the term dodekatheism for our faith and would prefer if people from outside Greece did too since hellenic is used by the living culture
First of all, any snotty asks I get because of this post will be deleted. If you can be polite, I’m more than willing to hear you out – especially if I make any mistakes on this post!
I’m obviously not going to cover everything! Some of these could become appropriation if you are intentionally seeking it out or basing your info off a misinformed source, but in general they are pretty safe!
Altars
Ancestor connection/communication (to your ancestors)
Astral projection/travel
Astrology
Blood magic
Bone magic
Charms
Crystal healing/magic
Curses
Divination
Dream magic
Elements
Energy work/manipulation
Familiar work
Grimoire/Book of Shadows
Herbal magic/herbology
Hexes
Knot magic (there’s so many options besides dream catchers)
Meditation
Nature magic
Numerology
Oils/Essential oils
Poppets (NOT voodoo doll)
Potions
Sabbats
Shrines
Sigils
Smoke cleansing (NOT smudging)
Spirit work (Be aware of cultural boundaries)
Wards
SO MANY MORE. This is why I don’t understand when people complain about being restricted? Like respect the boundaries people requested and practice any of these amazing options (and more) instead? Wow!
*Again, feel free to let me know in a polite manner if any of these are not open*
This post is SO important. There’s a lot of witchcraft, magic in general, and also religious and cultural traditions that are open to everyone.
There’s never a valid reason to culturally appropriate, and there’s so much you can do without ever appropriating.
I feel like we need have a more nuanced discussion on how practices like chakras and hoodoo entered into American Magic though.
Like half of the things on this list need to be specified because to be quiet honest, they wouldn’t have the type of common place presence and knowledge in western occultism today if it wasn’t for the appropriation of Asian and East Asian practices during the spiritual renaissance in the West starting in the mid 1800s.
Which all traditions, including hoodoo rootworkers of all cultural backgrounds participated in (partially because concepts like cultural appropriation weren’t even formulated in the same way back then. It’s a recent concept, trickled down from Academia and in itself misappropriated by mainstream activist spaces). Especially after urban migrations and the presence of spiritual shops as well as spiritual mail order supplies became prominent. Like you all wouldn’t even know about stuff like numerology or crystal healing if it wasn’t for the contribution and appropriation of Asian and East Asian practices.
From the use of Buddha imagery on wealth attracting products, to the use of incense ash, lucky rice, Kyoto powder, van van oil, bat headed roots, red string to ward off evil. To the use of various “oriental” incense and gums, marketed as such in order to utilize oriental mystic to give assumed power to objects and curios. To using paper money and hell bank notes in wealth and prosperity work. To the veneration of a variety of East Asian and Asian spirits on candle altars. All tools common place in American folk magic in general (especially urbanized) and hoodoo specifically (especially urbanized cuz that’s where a lot of us Asian immigrants were back in the day). Because communities do not stay in bubbles. We share and talk yo.
Astral projection, crystal healing, numerology. All of these practices utilize heavy East Asian and Asian traditions like chakras and meridians and channels and such because much of the Western Information has been lost (y’all colonized yourselves first with that imperial Christianity mess, and forced a bunch of your occult knowledge underground). And because of appropriation and orientalism.
I think what I am trying to say here is it’s frustrating for me when I see list posts like these, especially when made by people who aren’t actually moving in local Conjure and East Asian magical cultures. Because it 1) tries to speak for all of us. And 2) gives a very simplified history on the processes of cultural exchange as well as appropriation that has essentially created American Magic, and erases a bunch of historical movements under the label of “do not touch”. I don’t want people tearing all those apart in the name of being “non problematic”. That in itself is violent. And I happen to like the diverse mixing of traditions that can happen, as long as people are aware on where their stuff comes from and names it when they can.
And because tumblr can be a really toxic, abusive, gross place of performative social justic and allyship and fear. People just stop here and don’t actually go ahead and educate themselves deeper for fear of “offending people” with their questions.
I don’t want people to avoid my spiritual practices from back home like the plague. And then say that’s how they are going be “non problematic”. And then tell me I don’t have a place in Conjure traditions as someone of East Asian descent after all the cultural exchange that has happened between these communities.
If all you are worried about is being “non problematic” then your allyship and activism is often selfishly performative and more often than not silences rather than allow for calling in to happen. You gotta go more than that and go to reperations; respectfully engaging with the people that you have both exchanged with in the past and taken from problematically.
I want people to recognize and name where they got their spiritual practices from and how it came to be here. Recognize that exchange as well as appropriation has happened, and erasing that history with these “do not do” lists by people (especially people outside of local communities) is not helping.
I want people to make space and step back for BIPOC magic workers to actually have space in the larger esoteric communities. Rather than just performatively online. And then I want people, especially white folks to stop speaking for everyone else, and direct people to resources that will actually educate them on subject matters like chakras or candle work. Which are plenty, and written by diverse groups of people. Even white folks. If you will just do some genuine research with google. Which takes minutes and a discerning eye.
Because guess what, communities aren’t monolith? There is no such thing as a “closed culture” half the time (in itself an appropriation of terms used in social activism in Indigenous communities to try to shoe horn other POC cultures into). Many of these cultures are huge and do not have one central voice telling everyone else the “right” way to go about living our own god damn cultures. And we teach white folks about shit sometimes if they know to be nice and genuinely want to learn.
There are many white folks for instance who hold genuine lineages in their practices in Tibetan Bon and Buddhist traditions. And engage and give back to their lineages as they should.
Fucking thank you. This shit cannot be reduced down to a pithy little list to prove what a good ally you are.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.
“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But – I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”
The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.
“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”
“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”
The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”
Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”
“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”
Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.
“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?”
The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.
A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer.
“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”
“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”
“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.
And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.
Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.
“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”
“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”
“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the
earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost
before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath
your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.
“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to
rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”
“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”
And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.
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