The Modern Witchcraft Spell Book: Your Complete Guide to Crafting and Casting Spells - Skye Alexander 2015
Taking The Next Step
Spells for All Reasons and Seasons
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve learned how to craft and cast all sorts of spells for all sorts of reasons. You’ve concocted potions and lotions, fashioned talismans and amulets, and mastered a variety of magick tools. Best of all, you’ve trained your mind and discovered your innate power to create effects in the manifest world. So where do you go from here?
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
The world of magick is vast, maybe infinite. No matter how much you learn, there’s always something else to explore just around the corner. One of the most respected astrologers of the twentieth century, Marc Edmund Jones, once said that he’d studied astrology for fifty years and barely scratched the surface. The same holds true for magick. Perhaps you’ve found a path that resonates with you. Or maybe you’re still searching. Either way, you might wish to familiarize yourself with different schools of magick, even if you don’t end up embracing them. Each can offer you something special, something you may not have known about before.
You may also like to delve deeper into fields such as astrology, numerology, feng shui, or tarot. These ancient arts will not only enhance your spellwork, they can open doors into fascinating realms and expand your understanding of yourself as well as the world around you.
Read as much as you can. You’ll find a zillion books and online sites devoted to magickal practice and spellwork. Some focus on a particular area of interest, such as candle spells or goddess worship. Others provide a more comprehensive body of information. Each author and each teacher will likely approach things a bit differently, depending on his or her personal preferences and experiences. That’s a good thing, because you don’t want to limit yourself to only one perspective. Some you’ll agree with, some you won’t. Some you might decide to put aside for the time being and revisit later. That’s okay, too.
Knowledge is power, as the saying goes. The more knowledge you have, the more powerful you’ll become as a spellworker.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
Athletes and musicians know that in order to develop their talents they must practice. Spellcasters, too, must practice if they want to hone their craft and fulfill their potential. As I’ve said before, magick isn’t a spectator sport. It’s not for couch potatoes or the faint of heart. The more spells you do, the more comfortable you’ll feel with the process and the more confident you’ll become in your own ability. Try the following suggestions to sharpen your skills:
✵ Meditate regularly. Even ten minutes a day will help to focus your mind and ease stress.
✵ Practice sensing energy in plants, stones, places, people, etc. Everything in the world is composed of energy, so the more you can attune yourself to the energy patterns around you, the better you’ll get at manipulating them with spells.
✵ Do spells often. Not only will frequent spellcasting help you to improve your life, it will make you more aware of how your thoughts, words, and deeds produce results.
✵ Try different types of spells.
✵ Practice working with various spell components: herbs, candles, crystals, etc.
✵ Pay attention to your dreams. As you delve into other levels of reality and expand your intuition, you may start having more vivid dreams and receive information in dream states. These insights can offer guidance in your waking life and in your magick practice.
✵ Keep a journal. We’ve already talked about the value of recording your spells and rituals in a book of shadows, but you may also want to keep a separate journal of your personal growth—because as you develop as a magician, your thinking and lots of other things may start to change as well. If you choose to include all this information in your book of shadows, that’s fine, too.
MAKE FRIENDS WITH NATURE
Many of us spend so much time in climate-controlled offices, apartments, and automobiles that we’ve lost touch with the natural world. Kids play online games instead of softball. We text while walking instead of noticing the scenery around us.
Developing a rapport with the natural world can strengthen your skills as a spellworker, in part because many of the spell components you’ll be using come from nature: herbs and flowers, gemstones and crystals. Additionally, you’ll become more aware of your connection to the greater whole. You’ll attune yourself to the cycles of earth and the heavens, so that you can work with them to empower your spells. You may even attract attention from the other creatures who share this planet with you and gain their help. How can you begin to tap nature’s wisdom?
✵ Go for a walk without your cell phone or your tunes.
✵ Visit different places in nature—the woods, the waterfront, a hilltop—and experience the different energies in each of these places.
✵ Go outside at night and look at the sky for a while. Pretty awesome, huh?
✵ Pay attention to the moon’s changing phases and their effects.
✵ Sit under a tree and try to sense it communicating with you.
✵ Sit beside a lake, stream, or other body of water and let it calm your mind.
✵ Hold different types of stones and see if you notice different resonances emanating from them.
✵ Watch birds, insects, and wildlife.
✵ Collect fallen leaves in autumn or press wildflowers in your book of shadows in the spring.
✵ Plant some seeds and watch them grow.
You might also like to welcome the sun each morning with a yoga practice known as the Sun Salutation. Or take a few minutes at dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight to sense the energy patterns around you. Even if you live in a high-rise in Manhattan, you can still walk in a park, grow plants in a container on a fire escape, and observe the changing seasons.
CREATING SPELLS FROM SCRATCH
After a while, you’ll probably want to design some original spells. That’s great. Following these steps will help you to create spells that can be just as effective as the ones you learn from this book and from other sources:
1. Boil down the purpose of the spell to a word or short phrase.
2. Find the ingredients suited to your goal.
3. Determine the best time to cast the spell.
4. Decide if you want to include an affirmation or incantation. If so, write one according to the instructions in Chapter 5.
5. Cleanse and purify all the objects you’ll use in your spell.
6. Consider the order in which you’ll do what you do.
7. Write your spell in your book of shadows, along with your experiences and outcome.
What kind of results can you expect from your spellwork? Well, that depends on you. Like a computer, spells do exactly what you tell them to do. So if you perform a spell to find a perfect companion and end up with a wonderful dog, your magick certainly has worked!
CRAFT IT YOURSELF
Want to kick your spells up a notch? Try crafting your own ingredients. When you do it yourself, you imbue the components of your spells with your personal energy and intention. From the very beginning, you empower these components to work with you to accomplish your goals. They become embodiments of your will. You might want to:
✵ Grow your own botanicals from seed. Start with a few hardy herbs, such as mint for prosperity spells, basil for protection, sage for purification, and marjoram for love and happiness. Gradually increase your magickal garden according to your needs and physical environment.
✵ Make your own candles. One of the easiest ways to do this is to purchase beeswax sheets and roll them into candles. You can also melt wax and pour it into molds, adding specially chosen essential oils and flower petals or leaves from your homegrown plants. Opt for soy wax rather than paraffin (which contains petroleum products), and use cotton wicks that don’t have lead in them.
✵ Make your own loose incense. You can use any combination of resins and plant matter, so long as you’re certain they’re safe to inhale when burned. You will need: 1 part resin (combined or single resins) and 1 part dried plant matter. Grind the resin in a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder, and then grind the plant material. Put the mix in a small bottle or jar, shake to combine, then cap and label your fragrant blend.
✵ Make your own herbal oils for anointing candles, gemstones, and talismans. Place a handful of your chosen plant material in a small saucepan, and pour a cup of light olive or safflower oil over it. Heat the oil and plant matter gently over a low temperature for fifteen minutes, then pour the mixture into a clean jar. Cover the jar with a double layer of cheesecloth and fasten with a rubber band. Allow the oil to sit for ten days to two weeks, then strain it into a clean bottle; cap and label.
✵ Fashion seasonal wreaths and decorative arrangements from plants you’ve grown yourself, cuttings from favorite trees and shrubs, cones from evergreens, feathers you’ve found, and/or other natural materials.
You might also enjoy sewing pouches for amulets and talismans, sachets, and dream pillows, then stuffing them with botanicals from your garden. Learn to make your own paper for writing spells and affirmations—you can even add magick herbs or flowers to the mix. Craft ritual jewelry with gemstones and crystals. Have fun, but remember that each step of the process is an important part of your spellworking.
DOING MAGICK WITH OTHER PEOPLE
If you’ve been practicing solo, at some time you may consider spellworking with other like-minded people. If you already know someone you’d like to work with, great. If not, you might start checking around to see if a group of metaphysically oriented people already exists in your area. Yoga centers, health food cooperatives, and New Age stores can be good places to start.
Performing spells and rituals with other people can have advantages and disadvantages. Consider the plusses and minuses before you make any major commitments. On the plus side, for example:
✵ It can be fun to share ideas and spend time with “kindred spirits.”
✵ You can learn a lot from other people’s experiences.
✵ Combining your energy with someone else’s can ramp up the power of a spell.
On the other hand:
✵ If your energies or intentions aren’t compatible with those of the others in a group, your spells could get confused, diffused, or go totally awry.
✵ If you’re working with people who tend to be domineering, or you’re insecure about your own abilities, you might allow someone else to influence you unduly.
Being part of a group requires cooperation, respect, and tolerance, so choose your magickal companions carefully. They needn’t be your close friends, but you should have some common ground and similar ideas about magick. Honesty, trust, and supportiveness between you are important. Make sure their ethics are compatible with yours. Establish boundaries and set guidelines for the rituals and spells you’ll perform. Decide how you’ll delegate responsibilities and iron out problems. Don’t let anyone coerce you into doing anything that goes against your personal code. If something doesn’t feel right, trust your instincts and bow out if necessary.
Perhaps you’d like to study with a teacher. Again, check out potential teachers carefully before you sign on with one:
✵ Find out as much as you can about his or her background.
✵ Discuss his or her expectations of you.
✵ Are you on the same wavelength spiritually?
✵ Do you hold similar magickal goals?
✵ Do you feel the teacher respects you and your opinions, instead of judging or trying to dominate you?
✵ Are the pace, schedule, and workload comfortable for you?
✵ If the teacher charges fees, are you comfortable with the amount and the reasons for the fees?
You might want to interview other spellcasters for recommendations. You can do some online research to find someone in your area who might be right for you to study with. Or you can do a spell to attract the perfect teacher. Remember the old saying “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Between the time you began this book and now, you’ve come a long way. I hope that you feel the journey has been worthwhile, and that you’ve learned things you can build upon as you continue your work as a magician. Once you’ve started on this path, your life will never be the same. Magick transforms you. Your worldview changes, and as a consequence your interactions with everyone and everything you encounter in your daily life change, too. As Dr. Wayne Dyer often says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
In the process, you change the world. Remember that old saying about how a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the globe influences the winds at the opposite side? It’s true. Your energy, your thoughts, your actions impact everything else in the universe. And now that you possess a greater understanding of how this happens, you realize that you have the power to consciously create circumstances. That’s an awesome responsibility and one you shouldn’t take lightly. Every moment of every day, you have the ability to manifest the reality you desire, in yourself and the world around you—and every moment you’ll be challenged to make choices about how you use that ability. The future resides with you. Embrace it!