Thank you for the advice about my boss and my work situation, guys. Okay, I never gave a thought to spells, I had no opinion on them. Maybe on some level, I felt they are taboo or crazy or whatever. Well, I shared that I did this spell last week, a banishing spell which was to banish my boss’ negativity and cause him to change his ways/leave me alone. Well, this morning he was like a new man. I did the spell last week, and he was okay to me but kept his distance from the team. On Friday he lashed out at one of my coworkers. Another coworker decided to go to HR and she unleashed errryyythang. Lol So, today, he’s like a new man ...friendly, told me he’s going to give me a great bonus in a few weeks for all my hard work and spoke nicely to the whole team today! The best part of this whole thing is what I’m learning about spells is that they really are quite similar to prayers, and your intentions matter. Words matter, and I think not only did the negativity get cast away from him, but it helped me to let it all go. I really didn’t want to go to HR on Monday, something just told me to wait and see. @Born25YearsTooLate - your post is so helpful. Thank you! I haven’t used another spell since last week, but have used incantations without any items or “ingredients,” and prayed the same intention so maybe my boss is saturated in positive vibes now I never thought I’d be interested in spell binding but if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s nothing like you may think. They’re not magic in the sense that you wave a wand and the universe does as you wish. Instead, you use your energy and you focus on a potential new outcome and use certain words to create a change in your life. (And again, I invoked God) I’m not going to do anything too elaborate but maybe simplicity is best.
My ex wife has practiced spellcraft witchcraft in general for many years. She's always told me that it is the will one puts into their spell that makes it work. Pour yourself into the spell & it will bear fruit.
@Deidre glad it was helpful, and it was meant to be more 'food for thought' than 'hard and fast rules', and even the rules and laws (in the case of bonewits' writings) tend to be more 'observed suggestions of how things work' (i.e. - similarity, contagion, naming, etc) also meant as a general primer to get started if you wanted to explore things more deeply. yep, intentions matter as much as the process, and that's a big part of it. It's why, despite a fairly good capacity for it, (they tend to stick) I don't do hexing or cursing. No matter your definition, the end result I've found is that it just takes too much work to generate that level of negativity to harm someone or something. I have better uses for my energy.. like having a nice nap. spell-binding, as you put it, sounds a lot to me like 'raw manifestation'. (i.e. if spellcraft is cooking it up yourself, manifestation is asking a loved one if they can bring you lunch. but the outcomes can be the same.. just with manifestation, you might get a surprising or more unexpected outcome. either way, clarity in what you're wanting to achieve is of importance. because if you say 'just bring me a sandwich' so to speak, you might wind up with elephant and pickle on banana bread. the universe gets kinda capricious and funky sometimes. but then again, 'just a sandwich' might wind up being the most amazing hoagie you ever had in your life.) and here's the big thing too.. I'm not telling you that you /must/ use any of these things. One person might call on their deity, someone else might consult the stars, or calculate statistics, affix bindrunes, be guided by the awen, or any of a thousand other ways. It really is a 'you do you' kind of thing. But we are limited by the choices we perceive ourselves to have.. and that's why the info-dump. Although I've never found any kind of willwork (manifestation, spellcraft, etc) to be 'wave a wand and the universe does as you wish'.. more like 'I'd like to encourage the cat to play over here' kind of thing. but once you know your cat (relationship with the universe/deity/etc) you can pretty reliably know whether today's a day to sprinkle catnip, throw the jingly ball, whip out the laser pointer, or get the feather on a stick. and some days, the universe just is not interested no matter what you do. it happens. btw another place to do research would be a site called 'power before wisdom' - it's not your typical learning experience, and it does assume a couple things - you're a fairly reasonable rational kind of person who understands that things have repercussions, and that, like most things in life, nothing is ever 'truly' safe. I leave it here to say 'if you're curious, I think it would benefit you, but only you can make the call.' I personally encourage you to learn as much as you can about everything you can, because it's kinda like art. sure you can be a great pencil artist.. but what happens when you can add charcoal.. or oil pastels? will sculpting techniques work with metalwork? that kind of thing. play, explore, make a mess.. just not 'too big' of one, and don't mess up anyone else's backyard.
@Born25YearsTooLate - how interesting! When I first heard about spells, and most of us here have heard about spell casting, etc perhaps from a movie or literature, whatever...it sounds silly. It sounds hocus pocus-ish and rather absurd. But, after looking into it some, it's really no different than putting forth your intentions, whether that's in prayer, meditation or out into the abyss, and feeling optimistic that a positive change will occur. In prayer life, depending on your faith, the idea is to let God's will be done. With the spell I did last week, it honestly felt similar to that, but more intentional. I was more intentional, as opposed to a prayer...where you're rather passive, you know? I agree about hexes and curses, that seems a bit scary, to me, in terms of choosing to do harm to another. The thing is, those types of intentions mean that the spell caster has work to do on themselves, still. It means that there's something perhaps ''wrong'' in your thinking, if you are not only wanting to hurt others, but seek to carry it out. That's not me, at all. In one of the Wicca sites I've been lurking, the idea is to at the end of every spell ...say ''and may no harm be done.'' Or however you wish to word it. I like that. So, how often do you (personally) use spells?
'any act of directed will'... ponder on that thought for a while, and you'll realize just how powerful, and how much agency we actually do have in the world, and how few people actually put it to use. But yeah, pretty much spot on. That's why the 'white and black' magic debate tends to be rather.. academic. doing the wrong thing for the right reason, or the right thing for the wrong reason... well.. still gonna have problems, either way. I see hexes and curses as the equivalent of violence. at times, it can be necessary, but way more rarely than people think, and if it's come to that, then someone failed to properly manipulate the environment and circumstances along the way to de-escalate things. I used to follow wicca, and the biggest problem I found with 'and it harm none' is that mos people forget that 'harming none' includes yourself, and wind up metaphorically slitting their own throat, whether it be in business, or in spellwork, or personal relationships. Being 'too nice' can seriously hamstring you. (doesn't mean be a flaming douchebag, mind, but one should not offend themselves to prevent offending the rest of the world) how do I personally use spells? how honest of an answer do you want, because it might offend. sometimes silly purposes, like annoying my cat with little blobs of energy (not enough to be cruel, but much like rubbing a balloon on him type of annoyance), sometimes 'useful' stuff, like gardening. spellwork for rot and decay do amazing things for a compost heap, a lot of it I've done lately has been on connecting with my higher self, and strengthening my physical form, mostly for durability, healing and pain relief. I also tend towards minor charms on mechanisms I own (van, computer, etc) which tend to keep them from breaking down, and keep them running smoothly. at times I've used it to play with a lover's senses in the context of enhancing their pleasure to uncommonly achieved levels. I also use it for psychological work, to open myself to more opportunities in life, to be aware of them and how I can bring them to my advantage, without doing so in a way that directly disadvantages someone else or violates their free will. I can't help indirectly disadvantaging someone, as we all do, just by existing. But I do try to minimize my impact. 'less is more' is a very reasonable concept. why use a chainsaw when a chisel will do, and give you more control over what needs doing? as I said previously, I've walked light and dark paths both, and now, I'm pretty solidly in the middle. only as selfish as I 'have' to be to get by, but as generous as I can be without crippling myself. For a long time I actually didn't /try/ to do anything with it, because it felt a bit like cheating. But it's not. It's just a different set of skills that I have the freedom to use (or misuse). It's actually self-sabotaging if I chose to gimp myself by not using the advantages I was given, and the skills I've learned, and a disservice to the world at large if I can choose to do something good with it, and I don't. And part of that includes improving my quality of life, because if my life's a flaming trainwreck, what good am I to anyone else? So part of it is working on myself, so that I can accept the good things life wants to give me, while pulling myself up and out of some of the really shitty places I've placed myself through wrong use of information, time and effort. and I just noticed that you asked 'how often' Reading comprehension fail on my part. (no one is immune from mistakes.) I try to incorporate little charms into my day to day, and do 'little breaths' of them to improve my life in general rather than trying to whip out with big changes all at once. But I see no reason why, if it's available, and useful, why I shouldn't. I consider it part of keeping in practice, and with practice, one improves. This has been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember, and even if all it does is accomplish a change in my mental state or mindset, well.. that's fine by me. Sometimes all we need is a change of perspective anyway.
LOL! Nope. I thought of this song while I was out edging the yard, and said this is a good thread for it. Love this song, it's from my high school days.
Just remember to explore the ripples. When you cast a stone into the water the ripples go out and more than that one action occurs. You don't want unintended results. Think all repercussions through to finality.
This is a good point! I guess that's why it's vital to not be emotional when using a spell, or incantation. It can backfire, according to what I've read. If nothing else, our intent says a lot about ourselves.
