Little Things I've Picked Up

Traditional Ways to become a Sorcerer

Having the Gift

The Second Sight, Varm Hander (warm hands, healing hands), or diviner. Usually inherited from a family member or a past ancestor. 

Acquiring the Gift

Given to the practitioner by the spirits, by hugging a tree in which a cuckoo sings, touching or eating a white snake, touching the death shroud of a child, or sleeping under a coffin in which a dead person is displayed. 

Utesittning (sitting outside)

This may be sitting out in a cemetery, sitting at a crossroads, walking around a church three times and then sitting on the steps, going out in the forest and waiting for the forest spirits to teach you. 

Learning from a Teacher

This relates to the passing on of power. In Scotland, Faery Seers would pass on the power by placing one hand atop the initiate’s head, and another below their feet while the initiate stepped on the Seer’s left foot and looked over their right shoulder. It is said that the a teacher should not teach anyone older than themselves, and that if they teach a charm or rune, they will lose their power over that incantation forever. Also joining a secret society, like the Horseman’s Word. 

Standing outside of Society and the Church

This involves renouncing one’s baptism, staying away from society, becoming “violent” or wild. In one ritual, a seeker of magic would take scrapings from a church bell to a deep lake. There, they would cast the scrapings into the lake saying: “As far as these scrapings are from the bell, so too shall I be far from God.” And walk away without looking back. 

Having and learning from a Blackbook. 

Owning and learning from a Blackbook, or Svartebok, was another way to gain mastery over magic. This book may be given by the Devil or some other spirit at a crossroads or in a graveyard. It may be given by a teacher. Or it may be dictated by the spirits in spirit trance. 

The Toad Bone Rite

Crucifying a toad upon a tree, then collecting its bones from an anthill. One of the bones would float upon throwing them into the river. The seeker would then fight with the Devil over possession of the bone. Should the seeker succeed, then they would have power over man and beast.

I carved a Sutekh icon for my altar from the same blackthorn branch that I carved Eris. He is stained with an 18-year-old red wine bequeathed to me by a dead bus driver (praise be to Albert! May he live forever!), blackberry and fig liqueurs, and icon. The black stain is part char from my stove, and part a mixture of ritual ash and Stuart Semple's Black 2.0. The gold is ol' Stuart's goldest gold, which I can't recommend enough really, and gold leaf. The red is a crimson alcohol ink I bought last year and immediately forgot I had. Turns out, it stains unsealed wood really well, and can be blended out with neat isopropyl alcohol on a paintbrush. This would ordinarily make me worry about drying out the wood, but beeswax and neem oil solves all problems.

SHOP / KO-FI / PATREON / INSTAGRAM

Some UPG, as a treat…

So angels (or the beings we refer to as angels) are the architects of creation. By their very nature they form reality out of the limitless potentiality. They form energy into matter, the take chaos and make it into order. This is instinctual and unconscious. They do it because it is what they are.

Daemons are the opposite of this. They are beings of decay and rot. I think of them almost like mushrooms. They thrive on and help speed up the entropy of reality. Matter to energy, order to chaos, again this is just what they are.

This is not a case of right it wrong, benevolence or malice. They are simply two ends on the spectrum of reality. They do not oppose each other as enemies but simply as opposites, doing their part in the grand scheme of things.

The Lady and the Stag - ArtofMaquenda

by yanadhyana

🌳

Sean Mundy

Cycles, 2020

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Wodan, Freyja, Donar, Frey, Tyr, Loki, Baldr, Njord, Angrboda and Hel.

Artist:  Johan Egerkrans