About internet witches and wishful thinking

I am writing this post following a discussion that occured on a forum of Italian witches. Basically, one user noticed that some people she had not liked very much had had disgraceful accidents. Although she admittedly had no thought of hurting these people, she concluded from this that she may have some obscure power, therefore feeling sad and guilty as she had not wished for this to happen. Apart from telling an interesting story about the kind of readership Italian forums about stregoneria tend to attire these days, this also points to the issue of witchcraft, psychic abilities and spellwork. The particular discussion I had on the forum, however, was not with the user who opened the thread, but with another who jumped in explaining that this was absolutely nature and an expression of the first user's amazing psychic abilities. My WTF! rolled out copiously.

Two Poles of a Battery

Our coven is organized in the customary Gardnerian/Alerxandrian way (...),

it is based on the polarity of psychich femaleness and maleness. It consists, as faras possible, of 'working partnerships', each one of one female and one male witch. (...) What matters is their psychic gender, so that in magical working they are two poles of a bettery. 

(Janet and Stewart Farrar,  A Witches Bible)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes).

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Love spells

Everyone wants a love spell. No matter what form of witchcraft you practise, you will sooner or later find yourself having to deal with a love spell, either because someone asks you to perform it or because you want  to do it for yourself. A reasonable quantity of love spells is available online and in specialised books, so this post will not give actual spells but it will rather provide hints on the different kinds of love spells, the way they work and their effectiveness.

A Dead Man's spread

The death of a loved one can leave a lot of questions. People with whom we have shared a part of our life are hard to let go, while we long for them with our thoughts and heart. The questions are multiplied when the person who left us committed suicide. Why did she do it? Why did no-one see it coming? How can we make sense of our grief and of the acceptance of another one's gesture as the expression of his or her will? There are the thoughts that gave birth to the spontaneous tarot spread that I am presenting in this post. It is a tarot spread which makes maximal use of intuition. In some way, it is a form of mediumship such as automatic writing. Here is how it works.

About ritual candle-making (II)

The second part of this post about candle-making in stregoneria is about colors. In the previous post I discussed why beeswax seems to be the most suitable material for making ritual candles. It is natural, it burns well and it is an amazingly powerful and versatile magic tool.

About ritual candle-making (I)

Beeswax candles produced by immersion

This is a time of the year when streghe make candles. Candle-making is an important part of Italian witchcraft, and candles rarely lack on the working space of the Italian practitioner. Although today books of magic and witchcraft may propose a huge variations of choice in terms of candle colours and shape, Italian witches tend to favour a simpler approach. I will try to explain on what this is based and how it works. Of course, as everything in this blog, this is my take on it.

The knot of contention

I was asked long ago to write an article in order to spell out the differences between Wicca, and what it is  known to anglo-american witches as stregheria or stregoneria. The forum for which the article was thought does not exist, but the question is still alive. These three terms, wicca, stregheria and stregoneria have often been used as synonymous. When a difference has been made, this was in order to differentiate Gardnerian or Alexandrian witchcraft from stregheria or stregoneria, which is seen as an Italian variant of the old religion.