What Exactly is Folk Witchcraft?

Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:

• Before You Begin

• A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft

• The General Beliefs of a Traditional Folk Witchcraft

• What is a Traditional Folk Witch?

What exactly is folk witchcraft? How is it different from other types of witchcraft? Is it different from general magic? In this article I will try to answer these questions, and a few more.

Disclaimer: This article is specifically referring to traditional folk witchcraft inspired by pre-modern European folk culture. Pre-modern witchcraft is considered a parallel to an extant European shamanism (for lack of a better term). This is also a general article with broad definitions. If you’d like more details you can check out the resources I recommend at the end of this article.

The word witchcraft is just as overused as the word witch. Overusing a word without precise definition essentially renders it meaningless.

This ambiguity is an outcome of the pre-modern witch hunts performed by the Christian church. The Christian church was the first institution to say that any spiritual practices that were outside of their religion, were “witchcraft”. As a result, folk beliefs, customs, and practices were largely demonized.

However, there is a distinction between what a witch does, versus a general magical practitioner or observer of folk tradition. 

In order to clearly define what folk witchcraft specifically is, we must articulate a few different things.

What makes something “folk”? 

Folk is referring to the unprivileged common population of a culture. Folk do not have the education, financial means, or power of the elite ruling class. Historically, this rift in privilege meant that folk belief systems and customs were passed down orally in stories and through craft. 

When we look at what makes something folk witchcraft, we are referring to this particular class of people and their culture. In my writings and teachings I take a broad approach to the folklore of Europe as a whole, rather than one culture. There was a symbiotic intermixing and mirroring between these cultures over time.

A member of the elite would have had more access to books and formal learning. That includes books on formal ceremonial systems of magic, alchemy, divination, and spirit conjuration (known as sorcery).

This was not readily accessible to the folk people. So their magical practices were more simple and direct. Their tools and ingredients were sourced from their immediate regional place that was directly accessible to them. These practices were encoded in the orally transmitted folk tales, crafts, and beliefs.

While these two classes of culture did influence one another, they also remained pretty distinct. The ruling elite were already greatly influnced by Christianity. Whereas, common folk tended to continue the pre-Christian beliefs of their ancestors. This created a fundamental difference in their ideas of the supernatural. Of course, this in turn impacted the approach each took when doing magic. 

(Let me again state: this is a generalized article. There were variations in levels of education and privilege amongst pre-modern common folk, just as there is today. Especially from the mid 1600s onward. But, generally speaking, they were not educated in the same manner as the elite.)

Another great distinction to make is the general difference between folklore and mythology.

Folklore is a series of stories created by the common folk of a culture. They have some shared motifs and story lines, sometimes even shared characters. However, it is not necessarily organized. There is also great variation in the stories in each place the story is told. Until the 1800s, folklore was transmitted verbally. It was not written down or codified. 

Mythology is an organized structure of stories, usually created for religious purposes. This organized structure is usually created by a ruling class of priests and/or academics. It is recorded for posterity in formal writing and iconography.

At some point it may have started with folklore, only to be codified into something more formal. And mythology can also have some localized variations of stories. However, overall it is a religious narrative that is formally codified for broader dissemination.

Folktales and customs did pass on beliefs and practices. However, it was never an organized institution of belief in the same manner as religion.

Religion is also a distinction of class. To codify and formalize a belief system for a large group of people requires resources and education. Religion is also utilized in class warfare. It is typical for popular religions to delegitimize alternative spiritual practices. This is precisely what the witch hunts did. 

Mythology also tends to shift, via theocrasia, as empires change. Theocrasia is a fusion or mixture of different deities in the minds of worshipers. Theocrasia is a centuries-long practice observed cross-culturally as nations of powers shift and change.

Folk stories, beliefs, and customs existed because common people did not have the privilege of education or resources to formally codify their spiritual beliefs. 

Today we have more education at our fingertips than the common people in the pre-modern era. Which means the idea of “folk” magic is different today than it was then. But that is also the nature of tradition. It changes with more knowledge and perspectives.

Folk customs are still practiced today, because there is still a distinction between the common folk and those who are privileged. It will always impact the way that magic and the supernatural is approached. Accessibility and resourcing will always impact our worldview, beliefs, and capabilities.

What is the Difference Between Magic and Witchcraft?

Today especially, most people don’t know the difference between magic and witchcraft. They consider them interchangeable. 

However, we can start by pointing out that not just anyone is a witch. There is a specific process to become a witch. This process fundamentally changes a person. Which means their approach to the supernatural is, by default, different.

Yet, anyone can sit and learn a system of magic. There's no special prerequisite to learning magic. You just need dedication and practice.

But what exactly is magic?

Let’s start with a famous definition of magic given by Aleister Crowley: Magic is the art of causing change according to our will.

Modern magic especially seems to focus on utilizing personal power to create change. This could include healing, harming, increasing your wealth or resources, divining, and performing other acts of magical change.

There is a missing element to the modern definition of magic that was implicit in the pre-modern ideas of magic. 

Pre-modern people believed that the world was alive and populated with sentient beings outside of just humans. Especially spirits.

In pre-modern magic, one would usually at least petition (ritually ask) a spirit for assistance in making change happen in the world. This spirit could be an ancestor, a local land spirit, the fairy people, or, later on, even saints. 

Witches more explicitly engage in spirit communication, spirit relationships, and spirit work as the central mechanism for their craft. A witch specifically must have some sort of spirit familiar in order to even be a witch. Witchcraft was centered around a form of ecstatic out-of-body experience.

Many modern academic studies of pre-modern European witchcraft assert that it was much like an extant fragment of shamanism (for lack of a better word). This is very different from a generalized magical system.

Previous to the witch hunts, spirit workers and magical practitioners did not use the word “witchcraft” to describe their craft. Instead they were cunning people, pellars, wise people, fairy doctors, sin eaters, and many other names. 

The Christian church essentially lumped it all together to call any kind of spiritual relationships and practices outside of their approval “witchcraft”.

Other forms of magic utilize sorcerous techniques. Sorcerous techniques are a form of coercion to trick or force spirits to help a magician.

Witches generally worked with spirits who had consenting relationships with them (especially a witch’s familiar spirit). Witches, generally speaking, did not have to trick or coerce their spirit familiar to help them with their magic.

In conclusion, the difference between general magic and witchcraft, is the intensity and intimacy of the spirit work involved. 

This is especially true for modern magic, since it often does not have an animistic cosmology or framework, and does not involve spirit work at all. 

The other major difference is that anyone can learn and perform magic. But someone can only perform witchcraft by becoming a witch.

Putting Folk and Witchcraft Together

Using these general definitions, we could say the definition of folk witchcraft is the following: 

A witch who performs folk magical practices.

They must have undergone the initiation to become a witch. They must have the ability to regularly engage in spirit flight. They must have a spirit familiar. They must have at least some kind of communication with spirits (particularly their spirit familiar).

What makes it “folk” is that it is informed and inspired by folk and fairy tales, beliefs, and practices. The folk and fairy tales contain encoded symbolism of initiation and occult meaning vital to the craft. The beliefs and practices are an outgrowth of that cosmology. 

While some have practices based almost solely on modern reinterpretation of these older stories, I think that is shortchanging the art. Modern reinterpretation is usually misinformed regarding the original meanings of older folk and fairy tales, beliefs, and practices.

I find it exciting that we have a renaissance of revealing these older beliefs and meanings, so we can apply them to our practices today. The meanings are far more rich, and they also connect us back to our pre-modern European roots. As a practice is established with firm roots, we can then advance the art with greater power and skill.

Additional Sources Worth Checking Out:

• The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr

• Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey

• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade

• Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg

• Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby

• The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby

• Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary

• Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne

What is a Traditional Folk Witch?

Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:

• Before You Begin

• A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft

• The General Beliefs of a Traditional Folk Witch

Witch is a term that has evolved over time. Nowadays, the word witch seems to have lost its meaning because it is used for anything considered magical. Let’s fix that by clearly laying out how someone becomes a traditional folk witch, and what a witch does. 

(If you want to know how people originally used the term and what they likely believed a witch was, please see my earlier article, A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft.) 

Disclaimer: This article is specifically referring to traditional folk witchcraft inspired by pre-modern European folk culture. Pre-modern witchcraft is considered a parallel to an extant European shamanism (for lack of a better term). This is also a general article with broad definitions. If you’d like more details you can check out the resources I recommend at the end of this article.

First, know that the term witch is not particular to a gender. Witch was originally interchangeable with terms such as cunning people, wise people, sin eater, and fairy doctor, and many other names in pre-modern Europe. Their characteristics, talents, and spirit relationships all form a very broad framework for how one became a witch. In fact, their experiences broadly mirrored and paralleled one another. 

Becoming Other

A person became a witch after a process of othering, usually through some sort of loss or extreme disempowerment that led to initiation and ecstatic experience. 

The othering was a pairing of the:

• Social - becoming a widow, painfully losing a beloved, becoming destitute and impoverished, going through extreme illness or a near death experience, occasionally just being born into being treated like an outsider, as a few examples. It is important to note that undergoing mundane trauma or feeling/being treated like an outsider alone was not enough to qualify one as a witch (otherwise the majority of the world would be considered a witch, and that historically, to the present day, is absolutely not the case).

• Spiritual - usually there was a confusing and often painful ordeal experience in a meditative-sleep or trance state. This was the first experience of spirit flight to the Otherworlds. Typically this was induced by a spirit wanting to get the attention of the person, usually to start a close relationship with that person. That spirit would then become the person’s spirit familiar. All of this occurred in spirit flight (an alternative form of consciousness). The spirit was only visible or sensed by the witch, even after the initiation ended. 

Spirit flight is a form of ecstatic out-of-body experience. It is described as the soul temporarily separating from the body. Usually this is done in a meditative-sleep state. In some places it has been achieved with mind-altering substances (such as the ancient Scythians and their smoke tents of cannabis).

Most spirit flight resulted in a visiting Otherworlds. These are worlds parallel but different to the corporal waking world of the witch. Time, distance, and many other things were different in the Otherworld. (We see this frequently in fairy tales, when someone visits fairy land for what seems like a only day. Yet, when they return to their normal world it’s been years.)

Witches taking spirit flight are either accompanied by a familiar spirit, or the familiar spirit would meet them in the Otherworld. A familiar spirit is a spirit that has an ongoing relationship with a person. That spirit is not part of that person, but is distinct from the person themselves. Some familiar spirits have a long term active relationship with a person. Others only have a temporary relationship with a person. Familiar spirits are distinguished from general spirits, in that they have a vested interest in being familiar (intimate, close) with a person.

Ordeal experiences are like challenging spiritual quests. For example, while in spirit flight someone has to journey through the Otherworld for years. (Remember that time, distance, and even physics are different in the Otherworlds.) During that journey, the initiate has to battle monsters. Or they become mortally injured. Or they are captured, having their bones removed and then replaced.

Ordeal experiences were not usually pleasant, and were often frightening and painful. And while this is "only" in an alternative spiritual world, it still has a profound affect on the person experiencing it.

Othering is a central part of the witchcraft initiation process. In order to regularly have contact with spirits and Otherworlds, one must have a body made for the work. The Otherworld is demanding and dangerous for the normal human body and mind to encounter on a regular basis. Othering is the process of gaining a witch's body, so as to be capable of frequent spirit interaction and Otherworld journeying. Vital skills and knowledge are also encoded and given to the witch through this process.

Initiation usually happens through multiple spirit flights or journeys to the Otherworld. Usually, a person undergoes this process spontaneously. A successful initiation was evidenced by the person returning with new skills, and/or their life changing in profoundly tangible ways.

Within fairy and folk tales we have many encoded specific details regarding this process. These details are mirrored by the initial testimonies in early witchcraft trials. This points to a practice that was long ingrained and encoded in these tales and their subsequent folk beliefs and practices. (I'll be writing more about this in the future!)

To that end, several people still undergo this process, but without the context for what it means or what to do. And this tends to wreak havoc on their lives in countless ways, at the very least.

An initiation that does not complete was linked to madness, physical illness, general life chaos, and more. (If you suspect this has happened to you, it is a good idea to seek professional spiritual help. You can contact me for recommendations.)

A witch may undergo many different initiations in their lifetime. They may also gain many different spirit familiars as time goes on. (We’ll talk more about spirit familiars in another article.) 

Skills are Craft

Through the recently gained skill of regular spirit flight and communication, a witch is taught her craft. The spirit familiar teaches the witch how to utilized their newly gained supernatural skills. The spirit familiar also empowers their folk magic, gives them divinatory insight, and much more.

The skills a witch gains from initiation varies. Some become skilled in healing and knowledge of plants. Others are spirit mediators (the ability to see and communicate with spirits) for their community. Others work intimately with the dead and ancestors. Others become highly skilled in methods of divination and prophecy. Others become skilled in creating powerful charms and talismans. Most of them, if not all, develop highly effective folk magical skills to deal with the challenges of everyday life.  

These skills are the craft of the witch, otherwise called witchcraft. The witch strives to improve and expand these skills as time goes on. Some skills are not spontaneously given to the witch, but something the witch is prompted by their spirit familiar to acquire. For example, they may not spontaneously know everything about plants. Instead they suddenly feel the urge to learn occult herbalism.

It’s important to know that you can study and learn folk magic, without going through the process of becoming a witch.

Many people throughout time have practiced folk magic who were not considered witches. For more on the difference between a general occultist (aka a magician or sorcerer) and a witch, check out the article I wrote here. 

Historically, most people who became witches did not do it on purpose. It was a spontaneous process that happened due to a culmination of certain circumstances. Those circumstances varied based on the region and culture of that person. 

The Pros and Cons of Becoming a Witch

The benefit of becoming a witch is an increase of personal power. As I stated in my earlier article on the fundamental beliefs of a traditional folk witch: power is morally ambivalent. It can be used for good or bad. Power is simply agency--choice and sovereignty. Power is the ability to act and create change as you desire or need. Whether that is morally good or bad is up to you.

During the development of traditional folk witchcraft, common people desperately needed more agency and sovereignty. They were not educated nor were they financially privileged. The governing system was designed to exploit them for labor and oppress them. Circumstantially, the common pre-modern people had many of the same challenges that we have today. Gaining more power was revolutionary to common people then, just as it is now. 

On a less transactional note, even historic witches found their relationships with their spirit familiar to be profoundly important. Intimacy with the supernatural and the ability to have ecstatic experiences was highly prized. Today, I believe, people are looking for personal relationship with the divine and ecstatic experiences more than ever.

The downsides to becoming a witch is that by becoming othered, the witch is often treated like an outsider. What happens when your body and mind is fundamentally changed? What happens when you can see or sense things that others cannot in waking life? What happens if your dreams often come true, like prophecy? What happens when you have relationships with beings that no one else believes exist? What happens when you have skills that defy the rules of reality? 

Many may come to you for assistance, but otherwise keep you at a distance. There is an inherent dual feeling of awe and fear for those who have direct connection to the spiritual world, or supernatural skills. It’s an almost instinctual reaction humans have to things they find different.

At the very least, witches profoundly feel different to those around them. How could they not? When you experience spiritual ecstasy and have intimate relationships with non-human spirits, relating to humans can be a challenge.

On top of it, there are often physical changes related to becoming a witch. One of the most common motifs of pre-modern witchcraft initiation is the replacement of bones while in spirit flight. While this was a spiritual experience during an altered form of consciousness, often the waking mundane world would parallel it. That person would need surgery for an injured limb, or would grow deadly sick. This fundamentally changed a person, as well as marking them as different to their community. 

While this all may sound fantastical, many modern witches report similar experiences.

When someone is unaware of the meaning of this process, it is disorienting and scary. Well, to be fair, it can still be disorienting and scary even if you do know. 

The Modern Folk Witch

Today people still spontaneously undergo this process, and others actively seek it out. There are many modern processes for inducing a spirit initiation. Within these modern lineages, you can attempt initiation with supervision and assistance. It's important to note that even if you go through all the steps of a human designed initiation, there is no guarantee it will work.

This makes sense when you consider the process I've just described. It's difficult, sometimes even dangerous, and has many risks. We all have spirit courts that are watching over our life and destiny. They will often protect you from undergoing such a risky process if it is not your path. And this path is not for everyone.

Before deciding to undergo witch initiation, I suggest reading some of the books I've listed in the recommended resources section at the end of this article. It's important that you are of sound body and mind before attempting witch initiation or spirit flight.

Becoming a witch is not for everyone, and that's okay! There are other magical spiritual paths to walk that do not require this difficult process.

For those who feel you may have already undergone this process spontaneously, I hope this article gives you reassurance. I went through initiation (involuntarily) several times from childhood to my mid-20s, without knowing what it was. It was terrifying and so lonely not to have any resources or peers to talk to. I've written these articles with my younger self in mind. If that's you, may this help you carve out your own crooked path with greater confidence.

Recommended Additional Sources:

• Standing and Not Falling by Lee Morgan

• Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne

• Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary

• Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg

• Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby

• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade

• Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux

• Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux

• The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux

• Travels to the Otherworld and Other Fantastic Realms: Medieval Journeys into the Beyond by Claude Lecouteux

• Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs

The General Beliefs of Traditional Folk Witchcraft

Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:

• Before You Begin

• A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft

Witchcraft is often confusing, simply because the beliefs and ideas behind it are not clearly defined.

It’s also difficult because the modern Western world was shaped by imperializing Christian colonists. Today we vastly underestimate the influence that Christianity had (and still has) in shaping our contemporary overculture—whether it is the doctrine of Protestant work ethic (which is now refashioned into hustle culture), purity doctrines (which is utilized in wellness and new age spirituality spaces), the idea that we are very powerful or chosen and the world is ours to plunder, or the driving savior/villain narratives inherent in most modern story telling where morality is a binary black and white with no grey between.

Note: This is something I plan to address in an upcoming workshop, as decolonizing these ideas is a deep part of returning to an animist worldview, for any spiritual path—not just that of the witch.

However, in this article I want to focus on the fundamental decolonized beliefs of traditional folk witchcraft, using as little Christian diabolizing language and principles as possible.

This framework helps us understand what a witch is and how witchcraft is practiced. Below is what I understand from my own spirit communication, practices and experiences, and ongoing research. 

I am not aiming to outline the beliefs of a specific region of folklore, but instead want to show the common and general tenants that emerge where different cultures intersect in the broad category of pre-modern European witchcraft.

These tenants are rarely ever explicitly stated in historical record. Instead they have to be extrapolated from the information available to us. Information on pre-modern (non-Christian) European folk beliefs is easier to find, as more microhistorians and anthropologists decode them.

Disclaimer: There is no completely accurate reconstruction of pre-modern beliefs and practices. While we continue to gain more information as time goes on, it is still fragmented.

The goal is not to recreate what happened previously, but to honor it with our modern witchcraft. This means that our practices are rooted in the fundamentals we can identify from the past. From there we continue to add to that framework within the context of our present location and time.

It's also important to know that witchcraft has always been a flexible practice. Historical witchcraft reveals surprising similarities and parallels between cultures. Yet, every practice is still unique to its place and time.

Setting the roots of our witchcraft in the past while also updating it for our present time and place, continues this tradition.

By following these basic principles, we can understand and draw inspiration from traditional folk beliefs for our modern witchcraft.

In no particular order: 

1. The mundane and spiritual are intertwined and parallel, rather than distinct and separate. They interact with one another, affect one another, and change one another. It's important to see that our spiritual world is an active component of our mundane lives. For all intents and purposes, the world is spiritual.

2. The world is animate. Intelligence, sentience, and soul are not exclusive to only human beings. There are various layers of reality full of intelligence, soul, and specifically spirits that are both seen and unseen. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly interacting with other living, sentient beings. By living in the world, we are constantly in active relationships with those beings.

3. Non-human spirits and beings are not inherently good or bad. Spirits are ambivalent with their own agency, personalities, beliefs, agendas, needs, and desires. We should learn to interact respectfully and thoughtfully with spirits. We should try to learn how to have safe relationships with consenting spirits.

4. Spirits have a direct impact on the human world. This is evidenced in natural and supernatural events. These events include: harvests, weather events, sexual fertility, sickness, good or bad luck, conflict in our lives or a lack thereof, experiences that cannot be explained mundanely, recurring nightmares or dreams, and much more. 

5. Living in a spiritual world, it is our responsibility (and in our best interest) to be good neighbors and take care of our surroundings. To do this, we should learn or create customs to appease spirits, draw closer to spirits, or push spirits away. We should understand, respect, and steward our local place.

6. Folk stories, beliefs, and practices, are not outdated primitive superstitions. The tales are transmitters of important knowledge regarding initiation, belief, and practice. They also relay important regional knowledge for how to have a good relationship with the animistic world, and how to care for our physical world.

7. Regional location is the defining force of folk stories, beliefs, and practices. The land and its specific flora and fauna, particular cycles of weather and seasons, and its resident spirits are the first informants for this spiritual reality. When you have a deep understanding of a region, you can fully absorb and live the spiritual meaning of its folklore and traditions. This also pertains to celestial spirits, who communicate distinctly with people from different areas.

8. Each human contains a soul complex, which means a multiple-part soul. It's typical that there are 3 parts of the soul or more in various folk beliefs. Each different part of the soul have various manifestations, some of them physical and others non-physical.

9. The spirit of a human is capable of temporarily separating from the body. When doing so, this is called spirit flight, which is more broadly considered a form of spiritual ecstasy. (Should the spirit not return to the body, physical death of the body occurs. As far as whether the spirit itself dies or disappears depends on several factors.) 

10. The world of our dreams and states of alternative consciousness are just as valid, important, and real as our waking lives. Paying attention to them is vital in folk witchcraft practice.

11. There are many worlds, which I refer to as Otherworlds, that intersect, interact, and run parallel to our material mundane world. Often we make contact with those worlds through spirit flight, in dreams, and in alternative states of consciousness. 

12. Death is not the end of life, but rather the beginning of another way of being in a different layer of reality. Some of the dead have gone on to exist in Otherworlds. Some have remained close to our mundane waking world for various reasons. The most important part: the soul does not disappear into the void after the body has died, generally speaking (there may be some exceptions).

13. The general world/universe/layers of reality are impersonal, like an ecosystem. They are neither for or against you. They are not your candy machine, nor are they watching to see that you behave by some pre-existing moral code. Rather, this ecosystem runs on cause and effect, in an attempt to maintain equilibrium through deep time. We sometimes do not understand the methods of cause and effect, because we cannot fully fathom the complexity of this ecosystem. 

14. There is no singular organized practice of witchcraft in history or at present. As Gemma Gary has written: “A traditional witch’s practice is born from their own response to the ways of their particular locality and landscape, and an individual's instinct, insight, inspiration, and creativity.” I would also add that it depends entirely on the spirits relationships of a practitioner. Where those spirits guide and teach you will be unique to you. This is demonstrated in historical record, as well as modern transmissions of personal practice. 

15. Witches are morally ambivalent. This means they are neither purely good or purely bad. Historically, witches have always acted from what Morgan Daimler calls "situational ethics". This means that they choose the actions they take based on the situation and relationships at hand. If it made sense to help someone, they would. If someone tried to harm them, witches had no problem protecting or defending themselves. Some witches would also act to harm others, without being instigated first. This is why witches would be consulted for so many different needs in a community. They were also feared, as it was usually a very bad idea to screw over a witch.

16. Witches are mediators and agents of power. Historically, most people did not seek to become a witch. However, they benefited from the power that witchcraft and spirit communication gave to them.

17. Power is also morally ambivalent. It can be used for good or for bad. It depends on the choices we make. Power is simply agency--choice and sovereignty. Power is the ability to act and create change as you desire or need. Whether that is morally good or bad is up to you.

18. Witchcraft is just that: a craft. Craft is an action, something you do. It is an art that someone strives to improve over time. There are many people undergoing witch initiations who do not go on to perform the craft given to them. To not move forward with craft is harmful to a witch. It's like damming a very powerful river. It disrupts the wellbeing of a witch, as well as their mundane world. Our goal as witches should be to move forward in craft over time.

19. Witchcraft is historically not a formal organized practice. Until recently it was not a literal group practice either. Because of this, there is no defacto authority on witchcraft. There are facts about the history of witchcraft. (Which I try to share in the easiest to understand manner possible through these articles.) There are modern groups of witchcraft that have their own processes for initiation. But it is not necessary to join a group of witchcraft, unless you desire to follow their framework. The contemporary practice of witchcraft comes down to individual preference and experience.

20. Broadly speaking, pre-modern European witch initiation was spirit-induced. This means it was not governed or facilitated by human authority. Instead, it was induced by a spirit choosing to interact with a human being. Sometimes this was confirmed by another human at a later date. But most of the time it was a solo experience for the witch. The evidence that initiation was successful was whether a witch gained special skills, and/or their world changed in profoundly tangible ways.

If you prefer having a witchcraft that is rooted in the past through decoding the original beliefs of our pre-modern European ancestors, I hope to provide overviews and resources for you to track your own path. If nothing else, it may give an entirely new and enlightening perspective on what all those strange tales were secretly teaching, once upon a time.

Additional Sources Worth Checking Out:

• The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr

• Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey

• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade

• Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg

• The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg

• Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux

• Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux

• The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux

• Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green

• Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs

• Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby

• Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary

• Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne

• Standing and Not Falling by Lee Morgan

A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft

To understand how witchcraft became what it is today, we must look back into the past, first. The beginning of our story starts with the emergence of the Christian church within local pre-modern cultures in Europe (1100 - 1700 AD). 

To be clear, this is not an anti-Christian rant. This article is a brief history of the witch hunts committed by the Christian church. These historical events led to the modern idea of witchcraft and the use of the word "witch" today.

Outlining the factual history of something is not a form of disrespect or an attack on a belief. We all have a responsibility to know the history and heritage of our beliefs and practices, and it’s our choice what to make of it. If history offends you, I encourage you to leave my site.

This also lays the fundamental groundwork for what I personally believe and practice, which influences my writing on the topics of folk witchcraft.

As an article, this will be an intentionally brief overview of a complex part of history. If you want more detailed accounts, I recommend the pioneering work of microhistorians such as Carlo Ginzburg, Claude Lecouteux, Eva Pocs, and Emma Wilby (amongst others).

Up until the 1970s, most historians of the witchcraft trials took the stance that the trials were a result of religious superstition, mental illness, and a public need for a scapegoat when bad events happened (such as plagues) which could not be explained at the time.

Yet, this was only part of the story.

Let's go back… Back to the beginning…

Let’s go back to the pre-modern era of 1100 to 1700 AD in Europe. The Christian church is starting to spread in Europe because of the falling Roman Empire's conquests. 

During that time, most Europeans were not familiar with Christianity, its morals, beliefs, or theology. In fact, a definitive Christian theology was still a work in progress. The development of Christian theology was actually partially driven by the conflicts the church faced from common folk beliefs.

Imagine for a moment what this was like. Christianity has deeply influenced Western culture, shaping the modern Western world in ways we may not fully realize. 

But, at the beginning of the pre-modern era, none of this was present. As a new religion, Christianity was championed by the highly privileged who were educated, literate, and financially resourced.

Common people, aka folk people, did not have any of these luxuries. Folk people of Europe were not formally educated, let alone literate. They were also not financially secure, nor did they have much power or agency. More importantly, they did not know much about Christianity.

Instead, they had their own stories and beliefs. These were orally transmitted through generations and embedded into their culture of craftsmanship and farming.

The folk and fairy stories were bursting with magical and spiritual symbolism. They also encoded important animistic beliefs about their local place.

Amongst these common people there were specialists who dealt with this spectrum of interconnected spiritual-mundane life. Someone became a specialist through visionary experiences while in spirit flight, a type of ecstatic meditative sleep.

During their spirit flight, they would visit Otherworlds and meet spirits. They would then form relationships with these spirits (become "familiar" with them). Spirit flight facilitated the spontaneous development of magical skills. Relationships with spirits trained and empowered the practitioner in their magic. Folk and fairy tales are encoded with these beliefs and practices.

The complex ceremonial sorcery and magic in books accessible to the privileged elite, such as the clergy of the church, had little in common with these practices. In fact, many scholars assert that the spiritual folk customs of pre-modern people are remnants of European shamanism (or something similar).

At this time the common (non-Christian) belief was that there were countless wide variety of spirits. The belief and propitiation of land spirits, fairy folk, and ancestors was common practice. The mundane and spiritual were intertwined and parallel rather than distinct and separate. The world was living and it was important to learn the best way to interact with it. Even the soul had many different parts and could separate and then return to the body.

The practitioners who acted as spiritual mediators for the community went by many names: benandanti, cunning people, fairy doctors, pellars, wise people, and more.

Why would someone not call themselves a witch?

The pre-Christian idea of the witch seems to be a supernatural entity, sometimes the unwell dead, trying to undermine society through spiritual means. This is evident not only in early witch trial records, but also in folk and fairy tales. Very rarely is a human person a witch--it is instead a supernatural spirit of some sort. So it wouldn’t be a name people voluntarily called themselves.

Many of the practitioners accused of witchcraft would state in their initial unmanipulated testimonials that much of what they did was to protect the community from witches. (For example, the benandanti were spiritual mediators who battled in spirit flight against witches for a good harvest every year.)

It was not until the late 1600s that church indoctrination had saturated common culture enough for people to voluntarily use the term "witch" for themselves. (For an example of how this occurred in society, I recommend the book The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg.)

This gives us the lens which the common folk people saw the world and responded to it. It also begins to explain the reason the church was in continual conflict with the common people throughout the pre-modern period.

Much of the common folk beliefs contradicted the authority of the church. Then again, in order to be considered an authority the common people would have to understand the theology of the church, at all.

The Struggles of the Early Church

From the beginning the church's prime focus was the state of the soul and what happened to it after death. The Christian concept of the soul was contradictory to the widely accepted folk belief of the soul. And the Christian concept of death was contradictory to the widely accepted folk belief of death.

These folk beliefs had been around a lot longer than the newly introduced Christian church. Passed down from generation to generation. This spelled a recipe for conflict. And it was because of the ongoing conflict with folk beliefs that the church began to fully flesh out it's theology.

A few examples of how this ended up shaping Christian theology:

There was a long extant cult of the dead and ancestral veneration throughout Europe. Even the newly educated clergy had concerns regarding the dead that the church failed to address. In response to this spiritual service gap, the 12th century church created the concept of purgatory and performing Mass for the dead.

A more commonly known example is how the church created saints. They were originally folk spirits and gods that were relative to their local areas. The church absorbed them into itself to create canonical saints. They also often built their churches around the places of power associated with these old spirits and Gods. And of course they rewrote the related folk stories through the Christian lens. (This is highly prevalent in the country I live in: Ireland.)

Another issues is that the early church didn't really address earthly and material matters. At the time, it was actually considered heretical to pray to God, Jesus, Mary, saints, or angels for earthly matters. However, everyone, including the wealthy, had everyday worries that required regular assistance.

It was typical belief (even in the church) that illness was not merely physical, but also spiritual. Common folk could not afford to pay for the medical doctors of their time. So they would go to a cunning person to not only receive herbal cures, but spiritual remedies as well.

A pressing concern was when objects went missing. The harsh conditions of the pre-modern era meant that when your plow disappeared you might starve. In most cases it was too costly to merely replace the object. Unfortunately, the local constables did not normally assist people who lacked money or power. As a result, common people would ask a cunning person to help them locate and regain the lost object through divination and magic.

Some other examples include: accidentally disturbing local spirits, being plagued by the remnant dead, a desire to know the future, the desire to gain someone's love, wanting to know if your partner was cheating, punishing those who screwed you over, needing a better crop or harvest, getting your cow to produce more milk, diagnosing and curing the sickness of your farm animals, and much more.

These were things the church either did not address or outright condemned. But they were the concerns of most people, the common and nobility alike... and they weren't going away anytime soon. So, people kept relying on their traditional customs and spiritual mediators for these challenges.

Laying the Groundwork for Persecution

Leading up to the witch hunts in Europe there were a few defining events that would set the tone going forward.

An example of one, is that there was a shared conspiracy between the church and local governments. They believed that lepers who were supposedly sponsored or led by the Jews, who were in turn supposedly sponsored and led by the Muslims, were attempting to poison the water. In doing so, they hoped to effectively cause the entire population to become ill. This would allow the lepers, Jews, and Muslims to step into positions of power and destroy the Christian church. 

Some of this conspiracy was a money grab both on the church and local governments part. In the 1300s there was a significant famine. During that time the Jews became financially powerful as creditors and money lenders. The church hoped to disrupt the Jewish credit monopoly for their own gain. The local governments hoped to take the craft items made by the lepers for their own gain.

This conspiracy that the lepers, Jews, and (by proxy) Muslims were trying to disempower European society became known by the common population. Shortly after there was an outbreak of a plague-like disease. The disease was killing everyone, including the lepers and Jews. Because everyone knew about the conspiracy, the lepers and Jews got blamed. As a result, the locals circumvented the authority of the government and church, and held pogroms where they burned groups of lepers and Jews alive.

(This is a super condensed summary. For a detailed account, I recommend the book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg.)

This event, and others, set a dangerous precedent leading to the witch hunts. The local government and the church thought that people who weren't Christians were plotting against Christian society. When regular people heard these stories from others, they started to blame and harm innocent people whenever something bad happened that they could not explain.

Vitriol against Jews in particular fueled what became a doctrinal framework for the witch hunts. As far back as the time of the early Egyptians there was written antisemitic propaganda. The literate elite of the church republished and spread this amongst their clergy.

This propaganda stated that Jews were shapeshifters who sucked the life out of people, desecrated the sacred host and decried baptism, engaged in blood drinking and cannibalism (especially of babies), had unholy congress (sex) with the devil, committed incest, bestiality, and pedophilia… Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Between this antisemitic propaganda and the interactions of the church with local folk beliefs, the witch hunt doctrine emerged.

Double Double Toil and trouble

The church began to assert there was an organized conspiracy of witches.

The definition of witch changed from what the common people believed (see above). The church said anyone who practiced non-Christian beliefs or spirit communication was a witch. If a spirit wasn't approved by the church, it was seen as a demon from the devil. According to the church, witches made pacts with these demonic familiar spirits and attend group Sabbats.

These Sabbats included cannibalism, bestiality, sex with the devil, desecrating the sacred host, and worse. This was allegedly an attempt to overthrow and destroy Christian society. The Christian church was very focused on proving that the Sabbat were meetings where witches gathered in person and performed these diabolical deeds.

This is very particular wording and differences in belief to pay close attention to. 

As stated earlier, the regular people accused of being witches didn't know the church's definition of witchcraft. Regular folk didn't call themselves witches until the late 1600s, after church indoctrination was common knowledge. They instead called themselves cunning people, fairy doctors, wise people, sin eaters, and other names.

Common folk also did not use the specific word “pact”. Establishing that a perpetrator had a pact with the devil was key to the church's ability to persecute someone. If they could confirm that someone had entered a voluntary agreement with a non-Christian spirit, that basically made the entire case. So any implied agreement between a person and a non-Christian spirit was labeled as a pact.

For example, if you met a spirit while in spirit flight and they asked you to trust it and you said yes, that was considered an explicit agreement. That explicit agreement in turn meant that you had sold your soul to the devil, according to the church.

This was a slippery slope. The belief in land spirits, fairy folk, and ancestors were widespread amongst the common population. More importantly, the uneducated did not know the church considered all of it to be devilry.

When the church became aware of folk stories regarding being taken away to Otherworlds to dance and feast, this cemented their idea of the witches Sabbat. In folk and fairy tales it is common that people are whisked away to Otherworlds to dance and feast. This iconography was also a commonly described experience when someone had taken spirit flight. As the church became aware of these beliefs and ideas, they folded it into their idea of the witches Sabbat.

Going to an Otherworld and feasting with spirits becomes unholy communion with the devil. Dancing in the Otherworld is conflated with blood-bath orgies with the devil. Eventually the church had twisted many fairytale motifs into diabolical meetings with the devil.

(For a book on how fairy beliefs were turned into theological demonology, I recommend Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green.)

At one point this causes such a craze within the church that they attempt to outlaw almost any revelry whatsoever, in daily life. You can imagine how well that was accepted by the population.

The Order of a Witch Trial

The usual order of events for someone being put on trial as a witch, were the following:

First, someone would become upset with or scared of a local practitioner and report it to their local government or church. Typically the church would call that person in for interrogation.

Interrogation would usually start unmanipulated. There was no violence or coercion. Instead the accused witch would be asked to describe the work they do in their own words. Little did they know that this was a trap. Because their beliefs were not the same as the church, and they did not know that. (It is from these initial confessions that we gather a surprisingly consistent framework for pre-modern folk witchcraft, especially given it's individual and unorganized nature.)

The next stage of interrogation was the church taking the initial confession and asking leading questions. These questions were designed to entrap the accused within the framework and language of the Sabbat the church had created (see description above).

If they couldn't confuse someone into confessing the diabolical things described by the church, they would torture them. The accused would eventually change their story. The accused would inevitably match the blueprint narrative and specific language of the church. Or die.

Depending on the area this was taking place in, a prosecuted witch might go to jail for a period of time. Or they might die in some horrendous fashion, such as burning at the stake.

Despite their great efforts to prove there was an organized witch cult working to undermine the church, there was never any substantial evidence to prove it.

The initial uncoerced testimonies explicitly describe a state of spirit flight or spirit communication that is non-corporeal. In this spirit flight the accused may gather with other disembodied practitioners or spirits in an Otherworld. But this was never in physical reality. There were never any confirmed in-person gatherings of witches. And there certainly was never an organized effort to destroy Christian society.

By the mid 1600s into the 1700s the testimonies of the accused changed. The church had effectively disseminated its doctrine of witchcraft to scare the population. Suddenly the accused are openly and immediately using the language of the accuser from the beginning of the interrogation process. One of the best examples of this is Isobel Gowdie. (You can read her detailed confessions in the book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby.)

However, it's important to note that for the grand majority of uncoerced testimonials, the accused rarely used the language of the church. The common people simply do not use the wording related to devilry, pacts, or Sabbats. By communicating their actual beliefs in their own words, this puts them at a distinct disadvantage when trying to prove their innocence.

The Final Nail in the Coffin

As the Enlightenment unfolds (1700s to 1800s) the church changes its approach to witchcraft. At this point they have accomplished what they set out to do. The beliefs and practices of common people have relegated itself to hiding in the shadows. The overwhelming majority of the population takes on the beliefs and customs of the church. The church effectively undermined and delegitimazed folk beliefs and customs throughout Europe.

Instead of continuing to pursue witches violently, they take a new approach to delegitimizing and stigmatizing folk practices. They begin to say that people who claim to have a witchcraft practice are mentally ill and need help. Which is certainly an effective way to destroy non-Christian beliefs.

Sadly, academics in the 1800s and 1900s who began to study the witch hunts took up this same perspective. This is why witch hunts are still widely described as the church's "uneducated" response to mentally ill people (as one example).

This completely ignores and erases the rich consistency of belief and practice described in non-coerced witch testimonials. It also fails to connect the dots between the folk stories and beliefs of a people with their actual practice. But it’s also par for the course as it pertains to the early studies of non-dominant belief systems.

Thankfully, Carlo Ginzburg pioneered a new academic approach to the topic in the 1960s. This is what has allowed the flourishing niche of witchcraft microhistory. It's also what has given the understanding that my (and your) non-Christian ancestors deserve.

It is a revival that empowers us to study, understand, and find connection with the experiences, beliefs, and practices of our pre-modern European ancestors.

What is in the word Witch?

To conclude: the witch hunts were essentially a war of differing belief cultures between the educated and resourced elite church, and the culture of the uneducated and poorly resourced common European people. The intensity of this war varied based on the given area and the zealousness of the clergy in that area.

The result of this war was an iconography and vocabulary of diabolical activity for anyone practicing folk beliefs or honoring folk customs outside of the approval of Christian theology. Today this practice and belief system is simply called witchcraft.

It also resulted in many versions of a “dual faith” and folk Christianity. This is a synthesis of folk belief and customs with Christian saint veneration found throughout Europe (and many other places).

(My articles won't focus on folk Christianity or saint veneration, as they're not part of my practice.)

Words are like myths. They are promiscuous. They change with time and use and context, not to mention dominate culture and the way it molds our language like clay.

I don't think we can or should avoid using the word "witch" today. It has changed meaning and the charge it carries; and yet it also has not. This paradox in itself is powerful.

However, I still believe that it is otherwise important to separate witchcraft from the language of it's oppressors.

In this article I specifically define what made someone a witch, based on the many unaltered un-Christianized initial testimonies that pre-modern people recorded during the witch trials. They were surprisingly consistent across regions and time, though details may vary. Today, some modern people today describe the same experiences in their own life (Lee Morgan’s book, Deed Without a Name provides some modern examples).

In these two other articles I specifically define what differentiates a witch from other occult practitioners:

• https://www.amayarourke.com/writings/what-exactly-is-folk-witchcraft

• https://www.amayarourke.com/writings/the-4-spiritual-paths-and-getting-claimed

Recommended Additional Sources:

• Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg

• Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg

• The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby

• Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby

• Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green

• Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux

• Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux

• The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux

• Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux

• The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux

• Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind by Claude Lecouteux

• Travels to the Otherworld and Other Fantastic Realms: Medieval Journeys into the Beyond by Claude Lecouteux

• Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs

• Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South Eastern and Central Europe by Eva Pocs

Before You Start - Folk Witchcraft edition

This FAQ is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the idea of the Witch or Witchcraft.

This is my personal perspective, based on research with the specific intent of untangling pre-modern European supernatural folk and witch beliefs and practices from the heavy handed cover job of colonizing Christian theology. 

Within this perspective, a witch has a specific definition that differentiates them from other occultists. It also greatly simplifies the practices and clarifies the beliefs behind such a person and their part in the wider spiritual world. 

The language of the Christian church was absorbed into popular culture and utilized by some modern practitioners of the witch’s art.

I do my best to not utilize that language or practices heavily influenced by the church. I find absorbing the violently forced assimilation of Christian ideas that killed thousands of people accused of being a witch throughout the whole of Europe to be distasteful… but also, missing the point.

Why would it be our goal to take up the “diabolism” that Christianity painted on thousands of people so that they could justify their deaths?

My goal is not to invalidate other modern forms of witchcraft and definitions of the witch, but instead to share history both of the past and of the present moment. This was a vital guidepost and foundation on my winding journey to fleshing out what I personally have embraced after much consideration, spirit communication, practice, and personal experience. 

A wild witchcraft that returns to its animistic roots, telluric connection to natural cycles and forces, forgoes the costumery forcefully imposed by the Christian church, and returns to spirit relationship as a primary vehicle for ecstasy and empowerment.

The 4 Spiritual Paths and Being Spiritually Claimed

Authenticity is something we are struggling to find in our modern world. The clear, quiet melody of the genuine is drowned out by the white noise of the superficial. We all want authenticity, but hearing it can feel impossible. 

This is especially true in regards to walking a spiritual path. 

In fact, one of the greatest concerns that comes up in my practice is what kind of spiritual and/or magical path someone should follow.

This is also a major topic for me personally, as a dyed-in-the-wool Algolian. It’s common amongst Algolians to suffer through periods of losing their faith and feeling spiritually at sea. I am no exception. Yet Mater Medusa makes authenticity non-negotiable amongst her children. We must land on it within ourselves, or we suffer grave consequences.

As a result, I have found that Algolians tend to be good guides for others who are undergoing confusion around their spiritual path. My most recent research into the Medusa myth revealed that this is not just my personal gnosis, but it is baked into the actual symbology of Medusa herself: she is the Ecstatic Witch Mother of Initiation.

In honoring this gift of guidance She bestowed upon me, from 2020 to 2022 I offered a reading designed to help answer the question: what spiritual and/or magical path should you follow? 

I ran into a problem with these readings, a dual edged blessing-curse of modernity. The chart presents many possibilities for us to pursue as a spiritual path. Normally this would be good, but right now we’re living in the age of choice-overwhelm. 

We have more choices and information available to us than ever before. Add to it the subtle mind-fuck of social media influencing how we make decisions, and we have a recipe for constant hunger.

We devour and devour and devour, never actually feeling satisfied.

Information is gorged on until we are sick, yet the motivation to actually start down a path and do the thing is missing.

Due to the manipulations of the social-temptress algorithm, we are more concerned with missing out on the next big thing, than actually developing our personal path. We are failing to actually move forward onto a path, altogether.

Gorging on information is not the same as actually doing the thing. Practice is active and requires our participation. 

To commit to active participation requires us to find our authentic spiritual desires. We must at least identify the broad strokes of what we genuinely want and need in our spiritual path. It’s necessary to shut off all the outside noise, stop comparing ourselves to other people, and look deeply at what we naturally lean towards and the experiences we’ve already had.

Your spiritual path is really about you, because only you can live your life, only you will hold certain things to be meaningful based on your lived experience and emotional landscape. No one else can replace that. 

A good spiritual path can help us look beyond the material, guide us in making more fulfilling decisions and having better boundaries and ethics, find meaning in the mundane, and have comfort when faced with uncertainty. A great spiritual path can connect us with the world around us, reveal how enchanted each moment is, foster a deep sense of gratitude and creative joy, empower us to reach our goals, and make us want to be more wholehearted stewards of our lives and the people our lives touch (both human and more-than-human). 

At the end of the day, a spiritual path is immensely personal–and not everyone will choose a spiritual path that is good or even great, because they are inundated with white noise and can’t hear the authentic whispers of their heart. They’ll long for something that feels genuine to them, but keep getting distracted by what other people are doing—trying to imitate what they long to experience.

The first way to start filtering the noise from the actual music that is calling our spiritual souls, is to know what broad categories of spiritual path are even available to us.

After all, how can you make a choice and commit to it, if you don’t even know what the choices really are? 

So, as I saw clients on the topic of their spiritual and magical path, I began to ask  myself… Why do people seek spirituality? What are the broad categories of spiritual paths?

I know younger Amaya certainly would have benefited from a broad overview of spiritual categories. It would have been super helpful in narrowing my personal focus on what path to walk, or at least help me define what it is I was experiencing. 

Hopefully this will be helpful for some of you, too. 

Gauging the Temperature of Spiritual Desire

To help parse out what it is you want/need from your spiritual path I’ve created a set of broad categories that have a little bit of overlap with one another.

When it comes to our spiritual path, we should honor our natural desires, inclinations, and experiences. It’s best to read this and grade your level of desire for each category as if you’re taking your spiritual temperature. If you have a bit of desire for each category, that is normal! But usually, one of them will stand out stronger than the others. 

It’s also normal that you will change your spiritual interests over time, because human beings are in a constant state of becoming. Inevitably, you will naturally change over time. It’s good to revisit this simple exercise whenever you start to feel unsure about your spiritual path, to see where you land. Knowing which ones are dominantly attractive to you will help you in choosing the path that is right for you. 

Please note that my definitions are based on more than a decade of researching and learning about historical and practiced mysticism, religion, magic, and witchcraft. I’ve adopted some of the categories proposed by Dion Fortune, but defined them with my own observations and research. Naturally, I lean towards an animistic worldview, and my definitions will reflect that. I also make sure to center your agency in these definitions–no spiritual path should override your internal compass or decision making (that is when we get into dangerous cult territory). 

I don’t claim to be the de facto authority on each of these, but I think I can point you in a decent direction so you can do your own seeking and come to conclusions for yourself. 

THE MYSTIC

The Mystic aspires for close relationship (some would even say union) with the Divine. Usually the Mystic works towards this goal by learning to see the divine that already exists in the mundane around them. 

Sometimes this also includes making contact with the divine through visionary experiences such as meditation, astral projection, plant journeys, etc. It’s common that serious mystics do their best to remove the trivial that can distract and/or block them from being attentive and able to achieve closeness to the divine. 

While Mystics may not aim to do so, they often develop supernatural abilities as they grow closer to the divine–especially that of healing and prophecy.

Over time, Mystics naturally begin to sync with cosmic timing, developing a sense of trust in the ineffable order of the universe. They also actively work on being open and receptive to the direct transmissions of the divine. 

Many famous Mystics have shared that the hurdles and challenges of everyday life become easier to bear–not just because the Mystic can see the divine in even these hard times, but because the beloved divine has more intimate care for the Mystic.

The Mystic path is laden with incredible blessings the longer a relationship with the divine is cultivated, as the divine cradles the Mystic in return for their devotion and seeking.

A Mystic may choose the path of theurgy, polytheism, paganism, organized religion, or decide to cultivate their closeness to the divine through less conventional or organized means.

I would argue a grand majority of people are looking for some form of the Mystic’s path–especially those who come from a past religious background. 

THE PSYCHIC

The Psychic is a receiver of subtle transmissions/messages. However, it’s important to note that they are not always necessarily a transmitter of said transmissions/messages back to the divine.

More than anything else, Psychics aim to directly receive messages and information from the more-than-human realms, in various ways. 

This category has significant overlap with all the other categories. Perhaps we all desire (or even have the latent ability) to communicate with the more-than-human.

Psychic skills can happen spontaneously, or they can be developed. Some of those ways may include reading of omens (in various ways), prophetic dreams or visions, sudden knowledge, mediumship or the ability to channel, automatic writing, scrying, the use of astrology or other divinatory tools, and much more. 

In my observation, the Mystic often has some pre-existing Psychic ability (which is often what calls them into the path of the Mystic to begin with). If they do not, it’s common that a Mystic will develop Psychic skills as a consequence of cultivating a relationship with the divine. 

Some Occultists (the next category) have some latent Psychic ability, but I’d say this is not necessarily common. Regardless of latent skills, I’ve found most Occultists work very hard to develop a Psychic skill (scrying, channeling, spirit communication, etc.) in order to achieve their goals. 

Allow me to stress that few people are born with inherent and strong Psychic abilities, but we all have the opportunity to learn and cultivate those skills to various degrees if that is our desire. Discipline and practice will often take you a lot farther in this realm than talent alone. 

The skills of the Psychic may be alluring, but remember that knowledge can also be a burden. What you see, can not be unseen. It’s also common that the Mantic Seer is either disbelieved or vilified–as the messenger is not always welcome. 

THE OCCULTIST

The Occultist’s primary aim is to study, understand, control, and direct the seen and unseen forces of the world to their will–much like a scientist. The Occultist has a fascination with manipulating and directing the world around them to the tune of their will, and wants to master the knowledge and processes to do so. 

There are primarily 2 ways the Occultist will do this. 

The first is through Magic (of which there are countless categories). Magic is much like the science of learning the subtle laws and processes of the mundane-spiritual world, in order to bend and manipulate those rules to their will. 

The second way is through Sorcery. Sorcery is the practice of contacting other-than-human spirits and engaging with them as a knowledge and/or power source for magic being performed; traditionally this is done either through compulsion and trapping of the spirit, or through bargaining with the spirit. 

In this way, you could say the Occultist is a transmitter of subtle transmissions/messages into the world. They are constantly broadcasting the designs of their will, to the world both seen and unseen, around them. 

In order to know if their actions have had the results that they seek, the Occultist will need to develop some Psychic abilities to receive subtle seen and unseen transmissions/messages/omens. 

Many Occultists do not inherently have those skills. In fact, many make the mistake of only being the transmitter through their magical acts, which can cause unpredictable ups and downs in their practice. 

The wise Occultist recognizes this, and works hard to have more direct two-way communication with the subtle and spiritual world.

Often the Occultist will go down the path of the Mystic. This usually does not start off with the intent of becoming closer to the divine, but rather to learn the secrets the Mystic path may contain with regards to the subtle laws that govern the universe, and to find the secret tools and/or processes that allow them to bypass or bend those rules. 

Though the Occultist is not required to attempt closeness with the divine, I would argue that when one approaches Magic from the seat of divine relationship it has better efficacy and positive outcomes. 

To make sure I’m emphasizing this, those on the unaugmented Occultist path are primarily concerned with studying, understanding, manipulating, controlling, and directing the seen and unseen forces of the universe to their will (much like a scientist).

THE WITCH

Lastly, we have the category of the Witch. It’s a common misconception that a Witch should be lumped in with the Occultist category, mostly due to poor modern definitions and ideas of witchcraft. Usually what you’re being taught or advertised is not what we would historically call witchcraft, but simply magic or mysticism. I’ve written pretty extensively on the topic.

Before “witch” became the common terminology, they went by many different names including cunning person, wise people, fairy doctor, and sin eaters. What they all have in common, is the process by which they gained their skills and abilities; they also were considered ambiguous figures capable of both helping and harming through supernatural means. 

Historically a person becomes a Witch after a process of Othering, usually through some sort of loss or extreme disempowerment that leads to initiation and ecstatic experience. The Othering was both social and spiritual. Ultimately the witch must be changed, so that she can more naturally engage in regular spirit flight to Otherworlds. The Witch is also marked by having a familiar spirit that they depend on for learning and empowering their witchcraft. Traditionally, meeting this familiar spirit was part of the initiatory Othering. 

Usually this was not a voluntary process, but one that happened spontaneously due to various circumstances (the precise circumstances change depending on the region you are researching). 

As a result, the Witch is somewhat of a Mystic simply through the process of becoming a Witch and having a relationship with the familiar spirit (whether it is divine or not is a matter of opinion that differs depending on who you ask). 

The Witch is also Psychic because of the skills the Witch develops to practice witchcraft. They must be able to have ecstatic out-of-body experiences, where the spirit temporarily separates from the body to visit Otherworlds (also known as spirit flight). They also have regular communication at least with their own spirit familiar, a type of Psychic relationship. 

A Witch can also be an Occultist, and learn different magical trades/skills. However, the base of witchcraft starts first with the skills and empowerment of the Witch from her spirit familiar(s). Through their spirit familiar they learn the arts of spirit communication, spirit flight, healing, harming, finding lost objects, drawing wealth or romance, and much more. 

Witches have always been ambiguous figures, capable both of helping and harming. While they were considered outsiders by their community, they were also essential members of the community who could help in a myriad of ways.

As a result, the historical Witch was neither purely good nor bad. Rather the Witch was an ambiguous figure who could and would do either good or bad, depending on the situation (Morgan Daimler very aptly calls this “situational ethics”). 

The idea of the Witch at the edge of town or the woods is pretty accurate, since most of the recorded Witches were indeed living on the margins of society.

What happens when your body and mind is fundamentally changed? What happens when you can see or sense things that others cannot in waking life? What happens if your dreams often come true, like prophecy? What happens when you have relationships with beings that no one else believes exist? What happens when you have skills that defy the rules of reality? 

Many may come to the Witch for assistance, but otherwise keep the Witch at a distance. There is an inherent dual feeling of awe and fear for those who have direct connection to the spiritual world, or unexplainable supernatural skills. It’s an almost instinctual reaction humans have to things they find different.

Wait, but why isn’t a Witch categorized as an Occultist?

As we see above, an Occultist does not have to go through a process of Othering like the Witch does, nor is it necessary for an Occultist to have a relationship with a spirit, nor was it common for Occultists (as I’ve defined them here) to go into ecstatic visionary spirit flight. 

However, this is all required for someone to be categorized as a Witch, if we’re working with historical ideas and practice of witchcraft. If you want to learn more, I’ve written a series of articles that further articulates the difference of Witchcraft from other forms of magic and occultism, that you can check out here. 

That being said, today there has been a modern marriage of what would have been elite Occultism (via educated and organized systems of sorcery and spirit conjuration), the ideas espoused by the Christian church concerning explicit pacts with spirits, and some of the original forms of Witchcraft (i.e. spirit relationships and spirit flight). 

There are modern Witchcraft systems through which you can become Othered and gain a spirit familiar. Almost everyone who has created these systems will warn there is no guarantee it will work, nor is it a pleasant process if it is genuinely undertaken. 

Suffice it to say, most people do not choose to become the Witch, but rather are called to it. It deserves to be a category of its own, as it is a particular path with an ordeal initiation. Usually that process happens more than once throughout the life of the Witch, with many different categories of spirits.

With the exception of the category of the Witch, everyone is capable of having a little of the Mystic, Psychic, and Occultist present in themselves.

It’s even possible that during your life you purposefully cultivate all 3 of these within yourself. I’d argue that anyone interested in the esoteric will develop a bit of each at different times in life. Usually one or two of them will begin to take precedence in someone’s life, becoming a lifelong winding, surprising path. 

The process of making this spectrum of spiritual definitions helped me feel more affirmed in what I already have experienced as a Witch. I do have a tendency to lean into the Mystic side of things, and I certainly have been gifted and empowered with some prophetic Psychic skills. At different points I even become interested in the science of the Occult. 

But as time goes on, I lean more and more into my existing spirit patronage (hard won from my Othering initiations) for teachings and spiritual grounding. At this point what I perform is witchcraft far more than magic (you can read about the difference here), as it is spirit directed and empowered. This is taught and requested by the spirits that give me patronage, my familiars.

Ultimately, if I really reflect on my experiences, desires, and personal tendencies, it is more like my spiritual path has claimed me, rather than me claiming it first. But to give into it has been a journey of learning to make peace with this truth–and I do that by identifying what exactly I have experienced, and stop trying to make it into something else or hoping for someone else’s experiences.

Why is this important?

It helps me sort the wheat from the chaff. We have so many options today, and it all looks attractive. I personally would rather find a spirituality that fits, not just chase whatever looks attractive or interesting. I want deep spirit relationships, I want an enchanted existence. From my own experience, this is best accomplished when I stop sampling from a buffet, and instead give my dedicated attention to one thing for at least a period of time. 

In my experience, our spiritual path is a landscape, a place, that claims us. I want to be of a place, rather than simply from a place, as Martin Shaw says: 

“To be of a place is to labor under a related indebtedness to a stretch of earth that you have not claimed but which has claimed you…. 

To be of is to hunker down as a servant to the ruminations of the specific valley, little gritty vegetable patch, or a swampy acre of abandoned field that has laid its breath on the back of your neck… 

To be of means to listen. To commit to being around. It’s participation, not as a conqueror, not in the spirit of devouring, but in the spirit of relatedness. I think it takes a great deal of practice… You learn from the grandeur of its menace as much as from the blessings. 

To be of means to be in. To have traded endless possibilities for something specific. It means that, over the slow recess of time, you become that part of the land that temporarily abides in human form. That your curvature and dialectical brogue is hewn deep, wrought tough by the diligence of your service to the earthy tangle in which you find yourself. 

To be of means to be talking, not about a place but with a place–and that’s not a relationship available indiscriminately wherever you travel, but something that may claim you once or twice in a lifetime. It means staying when you don’t feel like staying. Cracking the ice on the water butt, climbing into your mud-encrusted boots, and walking out into the freezing dark with a bale of hay. It has little to do with how you feel, because guess what? Feelings change…. 

Knowing the stories of a place is bending your ear to its neighborly gossip. Like anything worth a salt, a place can’t reveal itself in a soundbite or a glimpse; the soundscape of a skylark has to settle deep into the curl of our ear, the hundred ways an elm bends its head to the autumn. The nature of these things requires proper time; there’s no way round it, nor should there be.” 

I want to be claimed, rather than being the conqueror. I want to feel like a puzzle piece that finally fits into the picture, rather than jamming myself wherever I become curious–never quite fitting, always cramped and wondering where else I could be.

This requires fidelity. Reaching a point inside of ourselves where we can finally commit to something, rather than continuing in a freeze state where we look around at everything we don’t have but could.

Sometimes being spiritually claimed happens by accident. I certainly feel that way about Mater Medusa.

In fact, in the beginning of our relationship I resisted it with everything inside of myself. How could I not? When you read the myth or look at the prognostications for the star, it all feels rather dire. Who would want a life like that? 

It was through her pursuing me and taking me back again and again to new and radically revelatory research, that I began to understand the truth of who she was–and that she had been with me for my entire life. 

What I found and experienced was unlike anything that I had seen written or described. It wasn’t all light or easy, but it certainly was not just dark and doomed either. It was more fantastical than I expected, and more importantly, She claimed me. 

I hope you have the courage to honor your authentic spiritual desires. To be authentic in a world trying to make us addicted to shallow images and ideas, is perhaps the greatest task for our age. 

Mater Medusa will not allow me to be anything other than authentic. It’s painful to discard all the skins that I tell myself make me safe, accepted, and liked. But it is far more painful to try to fit into the shape of something I am not. 

Being claimed spiritually requires a commitment to authenticity, first. I hope you’ll shed the skins that do not belong to you so you can embrace the beautiful, spiritually adept, you that is waiting to be heard. 

Crafting Beautiful, High Quality Celestial Talismans on a Budget

With a small investment you can make several ethical talismans that are high quality and lasting!

With a small investment you can make several talismans that are high quality and lasting!

When I first began my explorations in various types of magic (both folk, ancient, and astrological), I didn’t have a lot of extra cash for high quality materials. Because most talismanic and phylactery items are a “house” for a spirit, the idea that this house was made from subpar materials really bothered me.

As an animist I don’t think it’s respectful or kind to put a spirit in something that is bad quality, easily damaged, and/or temporary. I also wanted to be as environmentally mindful as possible!

Making paper or wax talismans and phylacteries didn’t seem to be an option in my mind–while at the same time I didn’t have the cash to invest in jewels (which are an ethical quagmire thanks to how they are mined) or metal clay (which is an environmentally friendly and cheaper way of making jewelry without a forge, but nonetheless requires a few hundred dollars of initial investment all the way up to a few thousand if you buy a kiln).

To overcome this, I dove deep into one of my nerdy passions: the history of art materials and methodologies. At the time I was studying the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, and while reading his diaries an egg of an idea was laid in my mind.

Inspired by Old-School Art

You see, when Da Vinci was alive paper was a rarity (very hard to create at the time) and graphite was not yet a viable drawing medium. So they typically used vellum (the skin of animals), gesso (a gritty glue-type substance), and something called silverpoint or metalpoint. Metalpoint is a type of drawing “pencil” that consists of a wire metal in a holder of some sort. Usually this wire metal is made from various grades of silver, gold, and/or copper.

This medium is still used today, though it is not very popular anymore. Instead of vellum, you can use 100% cotton watercolor paper (or if you really want to get fancy, buy some acid-free thin cut birch wood panels). Gesso is commercially available and you can mix in a substance called bone ash to create a fine grit surface. And you can buy 0.5 to 0.9 mm fine metal wire from your local Home Depot, Lowes, or a metalpoint supply store, and simply put it into a mechanical pencil holder.

The total for these materials is somewhere between $60 to $75, and will empower you to make hundreds of talismans and phylacteries that are low-cost, hold the magical charge for a long time, look beautiful, and are built to last.

Why So Much Extra Work?

Why would you go to all this trouble? Because I believe in honoring the spirits, deities, and non-human intelligences that I am in relationship and doing magic with. High quality and more permanent housing for a spirit in a talisman or phylactery is a very simple way to respect and care for the entities who’ve consented to work with you.

Acid-free archival artist quality cotton paper is so stable that it takes over 100 years for it to break down, and acid-free birch panels will last a similarly long time. Gesso further stabilizes the surface and creates a texture the metal can catch onto. And of course we’ve seen how long the metalpoint drawings of Da Vinci have lasted–other than tarnishing (which happens to all metals as they age), his drawings are still entirely intact.

This also draws on the principle that fine metal holds magical charges for a long and stable period of time. Christopher Warnock advises in his various classes and blog that silver and gold can be used for any type of celestial talisman. Copper is a close third.

Lastly, this method of magical item making is very low-impact and environmentally friendly. Cotton paper is a pretty renewable surface–you could also go with linen paper. There are recycled versions out there (such as Khadi paper). Metal wires are often made from recycled metals from castaway electronics. Bone ash is made from calcinated bones, which is a form of utilizing every part of an animal after it is butchered (which is far more honoring than what we do with industrial farming).

The only outlier is commercial gesso, which contains some form of acrylic polymer (plastic). You could avoid this by making old-school gesso, but that can be a bit cost heavy and labor intensive–plus is it really much better to use rabbit skin glue? Not sure. I choose where I want my impact to be based on what sits right for me and the spirits I work with, and what is reasonable for the time I have to spare.

Supply List

So what will you need to get started with metalpoint talisman and phylactery crafting?

• 100% cotton hot pressed watercolor paper that is at least 300gsm, in a block form. A block simply means the paper has been glued on all sides with a small slit that you can run a butter knife or palette knife into to release the paper. You want it glued down because all paper, even watercolor paper, buckles when it is wet. The glued sides help it to dry flat again with zero effort on your part. I’d also recommend going with a smoother finish such as satin or hot press. It will make it easier to draw on. Some brands of hot press/satin 100% cotton paper include Arches, Fabriano, Khadi (which is recycled and all proceeds go directly to the makers of the paper in India), Fluid 100, Stonehenge, Paul Rubens, Arteza… There’s a lot of choices! Since you’re covering the paper in gesso I would worry most about making sure it’s pretty smooth, it’s heavy weight, and it’s glued on all sides so it can dry straight again. American Supplier and European Supplier.

• Gesso — I prefer clear gesso from Liquitex. There is a silverpoint gesso from Golden, but it doesn’t take very many layers of metal and it easily damages and scratches off of the paper. So I go with normal clear gesso (metalpoint may struggle to show up against a colored background). American Supplier and European Supplier.

• Bone ash. This is going to be a very fine powder that you add to your gesso. You can usually buy this from your local pottery art materials supplier. Here’s two nice shops that gives you the real deal: American Supplier and European Supplier.

• A very soft brush such as a goat hair hake brush. You want a brush that is medium to large and very soft so it does not leave streaks when you apply the gesso. Make sure to clean it as soon as you finish your application, to keep the brush in good shape. Clean with warm water and a little bit of dish soap, then rinse thoroughly until the water runs clear. Reshape the brush and allow it to dry. American Supplier and European Supplier.

• 0.5 – 0.9 mm mechanical pencil. You can also buy a “metalpoint holder” but I find them to be heavy, cumbersome, and unnecessarily expensive. A mechanical pencil can do the job of holding the metal wire with a good deal of stability and they’re easy to find. If you’re just copying sigils, I recommend going with the 0.9 size. For full drawings, it’s a good idea to have a range of widths to get various details.

• Sterling Silver, Gold, or Copper wire in a 0.5 to 0.9 mm gauge. If you’re just drawing sigils, stick to the 0.9. For drawing, you’ll want a range of widths to get various details. I personally buy these from suppliers of metalpoint drawing materials (American Supplier and European Supplier) , rather than a home-wares stores on a spool. Twisted wire is hard to straighten out, and a 1-2 inch length of straight wire will last you for 1-2 years even if you’re drawing every single day. Also, metalpoint drawing suppliers give you a variety of metals to choose from at varying levels of purity. So you can buy 100% fine silver, sterling silver, various grades of gold, rose gold, copper, platinum, and more. Avoid tin, iron, or lead. Tin is extremely soft and does not hold its shape. Iron is prone to rust if there is ANY moisture in the air, and will break your paper down — which defeats the purpose of what we’re doing. Lead is highly toxic and can leach into your skin.

• A nail file or sanding block to give your metalpoint pencil a point.

• Various erasers to lift errant lines as you draw. I use Tombow Mono Zero erasers. It won’t totally erase the metalpoint, and you want to be careful about how hard you erase so you don’t destroy the gessoed surface; but erasing can lighten things if you have an accident and need to correct it. To reduce the possibility of making mistakes and avoid the need for erasers, I draft out my art on tracing paper first and then transfer to my final gessoed surface. I give instructions on that below.

Optional but nice:

• Tracing paper to copy sigils from Agrippa, Picatrix, etc. or to just draft out your drawing.

• HB graphite pencil to draw out your initial sketch and to also cover the back of your tracing paper when you’re ready to transfer.

• 2H graphite pencil to use for the transfer (it’s nice and hard and will work better for transferring than a soft pencil).

• Fine point micron liners (I prefer a 0.5 sakura pigma micron pen) to go over your final line work and make it easier to see on the tracing paper when you’re ready to transfer.

Preparing Your Surface

Here are the steps for preparing your paper. Anything more than 3-4 layers of gesso is unnecessary, so just stick to this:

1. Get a bowl and pour ¼ cup of gesso into it. Add 1-2 spoonfuls of bone ash to create a very fine texture. If you are making a celestial talisman, you can also finely crush dried herbal material (you only need a little bit!) with a mortar and pestle and add to your gesso mixture.

2. Wet your hake brush and then dry it so it’s only damp. Now dip lightly into the gesso. Apply the gesso with light strokes to the paper IN ONE DIRECTION. Allow it to dry until the paper is completely flat. You can also check if it’s dry by very very gently pressing the back of your hand to the paper; if it’s cool to the touch it hasn’t fully dried yet. Rinse the brush between applications. Cover your gesso bowl with a damp paper towel to keep it from drying out.

3. Once the first layer is dry, do a second layer going in the opposite direction. Wet your hake brush and then dry so it’s only damp. Lightly dip into the gesso. If your gesso is starting to dry and become tacky, add just a little bit of water. Apply the gesso in the opposite direction. Allow the layer to dry until the paper is completely flat. You can also check if it’s dry by very very gently pressing the back of your hand to the paper; if it’s cool to the touch it hasn’t fully dried yet. Rinse your brush. Cover your gesso bowl with a damp paper towel to keep it from drying out.

4. Once the second layer is dry, do a third layer going in a diagonal direction. Wet your hake brush and then dry so it’s only damp. Lightly dip into the gesso. If your gesso is starting to dry and become tacky, add just a little bit of water. Apply the gesso in ONE diagonal direction. Allow the layer to dry until the paper is completely flat. You can also check if it’s dry by very very gently pressing the back of your hand to the paper; if it’s cool to the touch it hasn’t fully dried yet. Rinse your brush. Cover your gesso bowl with a damp paper towel to keep it from drying out.

5. Once the third layer is dry, do a final layer going in the opposite diagonal direction. Wet your hake brush and then dry so it’s only damp. Lightly dip into the gesso. If your gesso is starting to dry and become tacky, add just a little bit of water. Apply the gesso in the opposite diagonal direction. Allow the layer to dry until the paper is completely flat. You can also check if it’s dry by very very gently pressing the back of your hand to the paper; if it’s cool to the touch it hasn’t fully dried yet.

6. Clean your brush and gesso bowl with warm water and some dish soap. Reform the shape of the brush and allow it to dry. These brushes last a long time if you take care of them!

7. Using a palette or butter knife, insert it into the little opening on your block of paper and carefully cut away the paper you’ve prepared on each side. Now you’re ready to use it! If you’ve made a rather large piece of paper, you can always cut it down to size for several talismans.

8. The directions are the same if you choose to use a wood panel, though you may want to lightly sand it between applications to keep the surface from getting “hairy” from wetting the wood. Some people also prepare the wood separately with a primer for this reason. I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but there are plenty of resources if you take a look around the internet.

How To Use Your Finished Surface With Metalpoint; Transferring Your Drafted Images to the Gessoed Surface

Now your substrate (surface) is prepared and ready to be used! To use it, take your metal wire and insert into the holder of your choice (such as a mechanical pencil). Make sure it’s held very tightly, as the more stable the wire is, the easier it will be to use. To give it a point when it starts to wear down, simply sand at an angle against a nail file or a sanding block.

It is a lot like drawing with a pencil, except that you can never fully erase it (though the lines can grow faint if you softly erase to pull the metal off the surface). You can’t really “blend” as you would with graphite, but instead build up tone with layers of hatching.

This is why I recommend first sketching out what you want to create on tracing paper using an HB pencil and eraser (you can also just copy the sigils directly from Agrippa, Picatrix, Christopher Warnock’s books, etc.). Go back over the final drawing with the micron pen so it’s easy to see and it’s permanent. Then cover the back of the tracing paper with HB graphite (a graphite block is handy for this, but a pencil can do the job). Place that tracing paper with the graphite covered side down on top of your gessoed paper. Then use a harder pencil such as a 2H to go back over the pen lines and faintly transfer the image to your gessoed paper. Now you can go back over this and fully render it with your metalpoint pencil.

OPERATION TIMING AND DEVOTIONAL WORKS

If you know anything about astrological magic in particular, you know that an election window can be quite small. I rarely start and then complete a metalpoint project within the tiny window of the election. So there are a couple of ways around this and different magicians will have different opinions about this. I say ask the spirits that you’re in relationship with what they prefer. Here’s my working method:

1. Well before the election I prepare my gessoed surface (usually with the appropriate crushed herb mixed into the gesso). I also will draft out my drawing or sigil on tracing paper, as I described above, and transfer it to my dried gessoed surface.

2. Well before the election, during an appropriate planetary hour I’ll work on the drawing over several days or weeks. This is a beautiful way to meditatively deepen your relationship with the celestial spirit you’re working with. I like to put on lectures or history about the planetary body and celestial spirit as I am doing the work, so I can sink deeper into understanding the spirit. This is a beautiful act of connection and devotion. I draw up to 97% of my artwork previous to the election so it’s ready to go for my invocation and consecration window.

3. However, if you’re just doing the sigil you could wait for up until just the day before your election, and at the right planetary hour draw 90% of your sigil so it’s ready for your election window. This is especially handy when you are doing multiple talismans at a time.

4. During the actual magical election time window I finish the last part of the drawing or sigil, and I invoke the spirit and consecrate the talismanic object. Then I allow it to incubate in a dark (non-sunny) place for a full moon cycle (sometimes longer, depending on the operation).

5. Sometimes I don’t get a chance to get the drawing close to finished before the election. In that case, I prioritize having the sigil on the paper and finished during the election so it can be invoked and consecrated. I allow it to incubate for a full moon cycle. Then I continue to work on the art at the appropriate planetary hour, until it is finished.

The Result

(Sorry guys, I won’t be showing you what I’ve done as it’s a part of my devotion to keep most of my workings private.)

The finish of metalpoint looks a lot like a pencil but with a high lustrous shine when you move the paper. Over time it will tarnish into something beautiful. Silver turns a golden-gray color, Gold turns quite dark, and Copper creates that famous greenish patina. This is beautiful to watch and is just a natural part of the metal aging and oxidizing. As I stated earlier, drawings made from metalpoint have lasted for hundreds of years!

The best part of working your magical craft like this, is that once you buy these initial supplies you can make several talismans. So instead of buying one decent quality stone (which was probably mined in seriously unethical ways) and a metal setting for $75+, you can create multiple talismans, phylacteries, and devotional art works with beautiful fine art materials. It lasts a long time, it’s a meditative and devotional act to the spirit you’re working with, and it holds the charge better than a plain paper or wax talisman because you’re using fine metals.

If you decide to give this a try let me know on my Instagram! I love to hear how people are putting respectful craft back into their magic!

2023 - 2024 free Devotional and Veneration Resources

Acknowledging and growing closer to our stellar ancestors is one of the most nourishing, enlightening, and clarifying practices we can begin at any given time. It is never too late, nor is what you bring too little.

Whether you're new or well-seasoned in your celestial devotional practice, I wanted to make my personal basic process available as an open resource for those who wish to start or deepen relationships with the fixed stars and/or planets.

You can now download these resources in my shop as free pdfs.

This process is a contemporary and simplified method of veneration (devotional relationship building) that is based off of historical practices in the stellar art. The modifications I've made are based on my own many-years-long practice and relationships with the fixed stars and planets, as well as designed for someone with a modern schedule.

Many people mistake complexity for depth or even artfulness. However, for most of us, making things complicated only leads to inconsistency and eventually abandonment of a practice.

The most important thing to remember in any relationship is sincerity and consistency. A candle, basic incense, and water goes a long way when your heart is in the right place, when you say prayers with fervency, when you show up and stay present in the moment. Doing this once a month with complete presence is a greater offering than giving gold ten times a month while distracted and inattentive.

There are mysteries inherent to learning the artfulness of simplicity, as well as going as deep as you can with the most basic of tools. A master martial artist doesn't need to know every complicated move--they just need complete mastery over the basics to be a champion.

This same principle applies to any esoteric or occult study or practice. Your relationships with stellar beings will grow based on how deeply in love you are with getting to know even the most simple things related to them--including how you approach your devotion with them.

Start with where you are, with what you have. I promise it is enough.

PRE-CONTACT ASSESSMENT

This spread was created for anyone who is nervous or has doubts in regards to starting a relationship with a fixed star or planet.

Relationships should always move at the speed of trust. A great first step is to pre-emptively ask the star/planet a few questions about itself and the outcome that may unfold from starting a relationship with them.

You can use this spread with tarot or oracle cards, and you could even modify the questions for use with a pendulum, dice, or throwing of bones.

Only move forward with creating a devotional relationship if you feel capable and ready to undergo the experience that is being described when using this spread!

THE CELESTIAL BRIDGE

This spread was created to help someone have a first-time conversation during a devotional session with a fixed star or planet. (For more on how to have a basic devotional session, I have detailed step-by-step documents in the next 2 sections of this article).

Everyone likes being known and feeling interesting to the person making contact with them. In fact, I'd argue that is just a basic level of respect in any conversation. This is doubly important when we are making contact with celestial more-than-human spirits.

When I designed this spread I kept this motif in mind--that for a satisfying spiritual relationship, there must be reciprocal expressed and demonstrated interest, as well as an idea of where things will go in that relationship. Healthy commitment is foundational to feeling safe in any relationship, and that includes feeling that a relationship is going somewhere, at least in a broad sense.

You can use this spread with tarot or oracle cards, and you could even modify the questions for use with a pendulum, dice, or throwing of bones.

Basic Fixed Star Devotional Relationship Building (Veneration) Practice

Fixed stars are, in one sense, easier to start relationships with because of their inherently broad and less-defined nature (compared to planets). However, this can also intimidate those who are just starting out who want very precise instructions.

I've done my very best to lay out a basic practice that takes out 70% of the guess work. Because there are almost 100 stars that are visible to the naked eye, there is no way I could sit and come up with correspondent stones, foods, or plants for each and ever one of them. In fact, the way I do that in my own practice is based on a long personal relationship with a star and lots of communication via divination, dreams, and sudden insights gained from research and connection making.

The only way to do this for yourself, is to start the relationship with simplicity (a glass of water, basic incense, the set Orphic Hymn to the stars), and let that relationship blossom and unfold over time.

I wrote this (free) guide with exactly that in mind: a very basic, accessible framework that can be done anywhere with very easy/basic timing--and you can build on and modify it as your relationship grows.

Basic Planetary Devotional Relationship Building (Veneration) Practice

Planets, in one sense, are more complicated than stars. There are planetary days, nights, and hours, as well as very precise planetary correspondences to stones, plants, foods, and incense. I've made sure that you are given a basic overview of these concepts in this guide.

However, I want to encourage you to start slow and simple. It's okay to set up temporary altars. It's okay to have a practice with the planetary day or night when it works for your schedule. It's okay if you only give them water, incense, and a prayer. The more important thing, as I said above, is your sincerity and consistency!

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Don't let dogma be the enemy of starting a fulfilling and personal relationship with the night sky!

Acknowledging and growing closer to our stellar ancestors is one of the most nourishing, enlightening, and clarifying practices we can begin at any given time. It is never too late, nor is what you bring too little. They simply require your presence and desire to connect--and I hope these guides and divination spreads help motivate you to give it a try!

Finding Your Fixed Stars & Basic Interpretive Principles

With all the information about fixed stars floating around, you may be wondering how to find your star parans chart for yourself? A tutorial on finding your fixed stars and basic interpretive principles.

As I’ve written in my monster article on how to learn about the fixed stars, the first astrology of most cultures was based on the Moon and the fixed stars–including the idea that the planets were wandering stars.

Before we began to notice the planetary cycles, most cultures around the world put a lot more emphasis on Moon cycles and phases, as well as the cycles and phases of stars. This is apparent in many megalithic monuments, burial chambers, sacred sites, temples, and even the pyramids.

Fixed stars were seen as Gods by many cultures, and their mythology is wrapped up in the movement of the stars (this is true in the mythology and cosmology of Ireland, Egypt, various Balkan countries, Australia, Peru, many Native American tribes, and so many more).

The earliest calendars were set to the movement of the Moon and the Stars, and the Egyptians had the first ever measurement of time at night that utilized the Stars.

In the West, particularly the Greek and Roman empires, the stars took a backseat after the discovery and mapping of planetary cycles became the main focus of time keeping and astrological divination. (This was in part because of precession, which is our view of the sky here on earth changing by 1 degree every 72 years due to the wobble and tilt of the earth rotating on its axis.)

Sadly, this loss was deep… As society developed more technology and tools it became less necessary to actually go out and look at the sky, let alone have a working relationship with the sky.

It’s also been a big loss for personal astrology, as even in the Neoplatonic schema of divinity, the fixed stars were the sphere closest to Unity, the most divine principle, and often completely alter a person’s lived experience compared to what they find in their planetary birth chart.

Thankfully there’s been a real renaissance of the Fixed Stars in recent years, which I’ve been honored to be a part of. A reconnection with the night sky beyond a chart that you look at on a screen regrounds you into a sense of place, an embodiment of the celestial influences in your own life, and the enchantment that is an inherent animating force of this world.

With all the information about stars floating around, you may be wondering how to find your star parans chart for yourself?

Below I give a quick photo tutorial using the free tool on Astro.com and then go into basic interpretive principles.

(If you want a VERY basic primer on the difference between parans vs. conjunctions, please head to my Coming Into Relation With the Fixed Stars article.)

Note: what you find on Astro.com will slightly differ from the chart you get from Starlight, the best (but pricey) fixed star software for reading parans charts. Their settings are slightly different, but both are worth looking at.

FINDING YOUR FIXED STAR PARANS CHART FOR FREE

Go to astro.com and click "Free Horoscopes"

Scroll down, find, and select "All At A Glance"

Select "Extended Chart Selection"

If you do not have an account with Astro.com you will need to enter your personal information and name. Please note that this will not save after you exit the window. If you want it to save, you need to sign up for a free account.

Once your birth information is filled out and you return to the main "Extended Chart Selection" screen, you need to go select the "Special" tab.

In the "Special" tab you need to click on the drop down that says "Transit Calendars"

In the dropdown select "Parans According to Bernadette Brady, PDF" and then click on "Show the Chart," which will generate a PDF.

The first page of the PDF is going to give you the general information of your traditional chart. Ignore that page and scroll down.

The second page of the PDF will give you a list of your fixed star parans, arranged into categories by the phase of the star. These are your natal (birth) star parans.

How do you interpret your fixed star parans?

You’ll notice that your star parans are vastly different than the conjunctions in your chart, and it may even seem like you’re reading a foreign language.

I’m not going to go into the super technical details of how parans are measured (that is an entire class by itself, which is taught by Dr. Bernadette Brady).

Instead I’m going to focus on interpretive principles and the way that I have come to understand reading the stars after reading over 1,400 client charts.

The Heliacal Rising Star is what I call the title of your life’s screenplay. It gives us an overall idea of how you approach the trajectory of your life, much like your rising sign in a traditional astrological chart (which is likely an idea based on the Heliacal Rising Stars the Egyptians were originally very focused on). You embody the attitude and often the attributes of this star.

The Heliacal Setting Star is the overall mission or theme of your life’s screenplay. It’s the wisdom you’ll come to embody as you move through life and gain experience. You’ll especially begin to feel the very loud call of the Heliacal Setting Star after your first Saturn Return, as it will drive your attention to a specific theme/idea.

Some people (not everyone) also have stars that travel with the horizon or meridian, and these will give us an additional note of tone in regards to the way that specific angle is expressed throughout life, as well as a special emphasis on that angle throughout the life.

So to put these three together using a movie as an example… Thor: Ragnorak is the title of a movie that denotes a mythological hero trying to stop the end of the world. Yet, the theme of the movie is someone who must learn that leadership is about more than just being the strongest and most famous/popular person in the room. The tone that the story is told through is the lens of very quirky action-comedy.

The different categories of the parans give us a 3 act screenplay structure with a backstory.

The planets in these relationships are altered by their angular contact with the stars, expressing themselves and carrying out their various responsibilities (as seen in your traditional astrology chart) utilizing the tools as well as the stories of the stars that have domain in that relationship.

For example, Mars in a paran with Sirius may show serious athletic acuity to the point of becoming well known for that physical gift. However, the rapid rise to eminence could cause this person to become emotionally burned from the preferential treatment and attention, as Sirius was known as The Scorcher for a reason. Like the story of Isis and Osiris, this person may need to go through an underworld initiation of losing their direction in life in order to redefine what success means and how it is measured in their life, so that they do not lose themselves in the future.

Rising Stars of Youth are the stars in rising parans, angular relationships to different planets. These stars are the main players in the first act of the play. In more practical terms, these stars are prominently active in your life from the time you are born until your first Saturn Return (between the age of 27 and 31).

Culminating Stars of Prime are in culminating parans, angular relationships to different planets. These stars are the main players in the second act of the play. In more practical terms, these stars are prominently active in your life from after your first Saturn Return (between the age of 27 and 31) until your second Saturn Return (between the age of 56 and 60).

Setting Stars of Latter Years are in descending parans, angular relationships to different planets. These stars are the main players in the third act of the play. In more practical terms, these stars are prominently active in your life from after your second Saturn Return (between the age of 56 and 60) until your third Saturn Return (between the age of 85 and 90).

The Hearthstone Stars of the Lower Culmination are nadir parans, angular relationships to different planets. Most of us will not activate these directly in our lifetime, as we would have to be in our 90s for that to happen. I consider this to be the backstory of your play, the heritage, ancestry, your upbringing and your reaction/response to it that informs a lot of your motivations and inherent approach to certain aspects in life. Therefore, these stars are with you for your entire life, quietly running in the background with their gifts and challenges.

Again, using the example of Mars in a paran with Sirius, the time period of life where this relationship takes precedence will be determined by the phase of the star. So if Sirius were rising, this paran would be most active from the time that someone was born until their first Saturn Return (age 27 to 30). If it were down in the hearthstone area of the chart, this relationship would take precedence their entire life–perhaps even an ancestral gift with the responsibility of learning how to steward so much ability with a tempered approach to success and how one gains self-esteem outside of accomplishment and notoriety.

In addition to the general time periods, stars can also be activated via planetary profections, and become a cameo or guest star for a year. Much like Seinfeld is the main character of the show, we often get a cameo such as the Soup Guy for an episode or two–that is what it is like to have stars become activated temporarily. (If you want to learn about profections, I recommend this article from Kelly Surtees, and this in-depth video from the Astrology Podcast.)

As an example, when you enter a profection year where Mars is the Lord of the Year, all of the parans in your chart that are with Mars (regardless of their general timing period) will become prominent actors in your life for the year.

Edit: The first person to have presented publicly about the idea of stars being additional Time Lords utilizing the profections technique was certainly Oscar Moises Diaz, and he has very generously made his research and presentation on the topic available for anyone to watch on Youtube. I apologize to Oscar if he felt in any way that he was uncredited for his personal research on the topic.

But... How do I interpret these combinations?

Is this complex? Yes! Especially when you factor in the number of stars (Brady uses 64, but there are many more than that) and their many different combinations with the planets. That’s why there are entire intensive classes to learn this technique!

However, I hope this gives a general idea of how to find your stars and the framework for how to interpret them. It is far beyond the scope of an article to go into how to interpret individual star-planet combinations.

For those who are going to try to use the internet as a resource to learn about individual stars, let me caution:  

When researching fixed stars, it's a good idea to take ancient prognostications with a grain of salt, as historically they tend toward the more extreme versions of what the star could do. Also, in astrological magic usually the negative connotations get reversed into assets, such as the Pleiades causing blindness (mundane prognostication) becoming magically supportive for having insights or finding hidden information.

I've written a blog entry with detailed and well-vetted resources to check out:

https://www.amayarourke.com/writings/coming-into-relation-with-the-fixed-stars-where-to-learn

IF I COULD HAVE ONLY ONE SET OF BOOKS ON STARS, IT WOULD BE THE BOOKS BY DIANA ROSENBERG.

Secrets of the Ancient Skies volumes 1 & 2 are available here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Secrets-of-the-Ancient-Skies-Volumes-1-2-/180895447763

Coming Into Relation With the Fixed Stars: Where to Learn

I believe one of the foundational pieces of astrology, the ENTIRE night sky (not just the narrow band of the ecliptic, the pathway of the Sun), has been forsaken in our reconstruction of ancient astrology.

A boat sailing on an endless ocean towards a light up horizon of stars and clouds.

Before there was the astrology that we know and practice today, in almost every culture worldwide there was STAR veneration.

And in fact, predating even Babylonian planetary astrology, most of the cultures in the Mediterranean area had star cults. Many of them worshiped circumpolar stars as fertility deities.

The Egyptian goddess of the night sky, Nut, the primordial womb of the Gods.

The Egyptians were far more focused on the fixed stars as they believed their Sun God died every night and had to travel through the stations of the womb of his mother, Nut the cosmic sky and star goddess. They believed they needed to know which Gods to venerate (determined by the heliacal rising star, and then eventually the heliacally culminating star, at that time), to ensure that the Sun would be reborn each day. After all, if he wasn’t reborn the world would perish. So they created a calendar called the Decans, to know which God or Goddess to pray to every 10 days (this is very different from the Decans used in Hellenistic astrology). They also invented the first ever method for telling time at night!

This is to say, I believe one of the foundational pieces of astrology, the ENTIRE night sky (not just the narrow band of the ecliptic, the pathway of the Sun), has been forsaken in our reconstruction of ancient astrology.

Projection: the Truth of Conjunctions

What we typically use today in popular astrology are star conjunctions. In most cases, if you try to find a star that is supposedly in conjunction in your chart, you will be baffled to discover it is nowhere close to the sign it supposedly occupies. That is because we project stars back onto the ecliptic to get the conjunctions we use in a flat 2 dimensional chart that is limited to the ecliptic.

See that tiny pink line on the astrolabe? That’s the ecliptic that we base our astrology on (it's where the zodiac is fixed). As you can see there is a HUGE sky that is never paid mind in today’s reconstruction of ancient astrology. Instead, we take stars that are very far away from the ecliptic, and project them back onto the ecliptic to create conjunctions.

Star parans (short for parantellonta) are essentially the angular relationship of stars and planets in their various phases (rising, culminating, setting, anti-culminating)–and most importantly WHERE THEY ARE ACTUALLY LOCATED IN THE SKY. The practice of parans allows you to engage with a living sky that you can observe in your daily life, not just on a piece of paper or through some software. It brings us back to the sacred personal relationship that humans historically had with the cosmos.

In fact, what drew me to learn parans was an incident in which I was trying to locate a star that one of my planets is conjoined in my Hellenistic natal chart. I went out on a crisp evening sky in the Czech Republic, an area with very little light pollution.

As I realized there was a word for my spiritual beliefs–animism–it became important to me that the astrology I practiced allowed me to have an honest relationship with the living cosmos.

The entire Milky Way was laid out above the forest line. Using an app on my phone I searched for where I assumed this star should be located along the ecliptic… and it was nowhere to be found. I became instantly befuddled. I thought ancient astrology was about what was visible? Where was this star? As it turned out, on the opposite side of the sky nowhere close to the ecliptic. What was going on?

Hellenistic astrology, while it addressed the observation of the visible 7 planets as they traveled along the path of the ecliptic, did not accurately address the stars. Thus began my journey into fixed stars and unraveling one of the oldest traditions of nearly every single culture worldwide.

If you’ve had one of my (now retired) Fixed Star readings and you’re trying to learn more about stars, or if you’re an astrologer looking to branch out and add fixed stars and their accurate location and phases to your practice, I’ve made this study guide for you.

Context is King

First, it’s important to note that astrological prognostications from ANY place in the world is going to be deeply influenced by their cultural norms and the context of the times they lived in.

For example, as the Mediterranean became more Romanized, you see that almost every star deemed as feminine has something nasty connected with it. The Pleiades are said to cause blindness. Why? Because they are 7 beautiful sisters that can incite lust.

Another commonality is that the myths around the stars are allegories for the history of a country (some will argue that myths were only used in a mystery school context, but that is simply not true as the myths were circulated far beyond the tiny confines of a select mystery school). For example, the myth of the fixed star Algol was actually an allegory for the Greeks conquering a part of Libya (Lake Tritonus according to a Pausanian description of events) that worshiped a fertility creatrix, a goddess that had snakes for hair. And even the idea that the head of Medusa could be used for protection was an allegory for how the Greeks turned that North African country into a defensive line for their empire, protecting them from invaders.

The Egyptians claimed the circumpolar stars (stars that from our view circle the upper culmination of the sky and never helically rise or set) was the realm of the immortals–Gods that did not care about human life because they were too distant from it, and could therefore not understand our plight. That is because the cultures previous to the Egyptians had worshiped circumpolar stars as fertility deities, and in true imperial fashion the Egyptians were like, “Not those gods!” and refocused their citizens on the cosmology of their choice.

This is all to come to 3 points:

A. It’s a good idea to take the old myths and prognostications of the stars with a grain of salt. Try to think about the context of that culture and time. If you see something such as, “You’ll be stabbed in the gut and robbed, dying alone,” think about the time that it was written. If you were a person of means during that time period (which were the people most privileged to receive personal astrological guidance), it was not unreasonable to assume this could happen. But today that is not as likely to happen, and even if this did happen–you would be unlikely to die because of how advanced our medical care is. Context is really key here.

B. Look to more than one culture and several real-life examples for the stars. Round out your education with more than one perspective. You’ll be surprised to learn that the parans method of star observation was actually common in several different cultures that had (to our knowledge) never been in contact with one another. For example, the Incas were making prognostications with the helical rise, culmination, and setting of the stars and planets just like the Egyptians. But their cosmologies are vastly different, and therefore the meanings assigned to the fixed stars are also vastly different. This helps us to get a better sense of the complexity of the living stars, which brings me to my next point…

C. In the Neo-platonic scheme of divinity, the Greeks considered the stars to be a higher form of divinity only “beneath” the sphere of Unity (which isn’t really a sphere but for the purposes of this article we’ll consider it that). I agree with this. They are complex and living, and therefore much more than we can usually reasonably grasp. In various mystery religions worldwide it has been said to see the face of God in it’s totality would melt the meat right off your bones. I believe this is a metaphor for the complexity of various deities. And this applies to stars, in my book. So the various different meanings assigned to the stars around the world is telling of how one culture encountered that star, and gives us a fuller picture of it’s complex beauty.

My final word before I get into the study guide, is to be cautious in talking about the stars in terms of being like a planet. This was done retro-actively by the Greeks and Romans to describe the stars… but they are much bigger than just being the “nature of Saturn and Venus” for example. It’s my personal reasoning that they did this BECAUSE the stars were so complex and had such a profound impact when in contact with various parts of the chart, that this was the only way they could grasp at their meaning. But in my experience as a parans astrologer and astrological mage, the stars are far bigger than a super limited planetary description. Remember that the Neo-platonic scheme underlying the philosophy of Hellenistic astrology stated that the fixed stars were a higher form of divinity–and that was because of their consistency compared to the erratic movements of the planets.

THE ESSENTIAL FIXED STAR STUDY GUIDE

Dr. Bernadette Brady’s lectures

If you’re serious about learning how to do parans, skip books for now and go directly for Dr. Bernadette Brady’s lectures. They are engaging, give oodles of history behind the practice, and she goes deep into the philosophy and thinking behind parans, not to mention the actual mythology of the stars themselves. These lectures teach you to READ the stars for clients (or yourself). Make sure you get the COMPLETE set of lectures.

Diana Rosenberg’s books

If I could only have one set of book sin my library about the fixed stars, Secrets of the Ancient Skies Volume 1 and Volume 2 would be it. Secrets of the Ancient Skies are a pair of books that are ENCYCLOPEDIC. Diana finished these books while she underwent treatment for cancer, and this was her swan song project, which we are so blessed to have today. She differs in her technical star methods from Brady (she uses projected ecliptic conjunctions rather than parans), but the books are so dense with information, mythology, alternative sources to check out, and case studies that they’re indispensable in my library.

Gray Crawford's Patreon (joined by his partner Genie)

If you want an enspirited yet historical education of the fixed stars within the tradition of Western astrology, Gray and Genie have begun to give webinars for the heliacal rising dates of stars. Their classes span the historical Gods and Goddesses and natural events connected with the fixed stars across the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman mythologies and cultures.  This is a great way to learn an in-depth foundation in fixed star lore for your magical and devotional activities.

Dr. Bernadette Brady’s books

These will not teach you how to read the stars for clients (or yourself) but they are excellent reference material to have on hand. She has selected 67 stars to cover with depth, and gives you the technical instructions for reading star charts and determining phases. If you’re an enthusiast, I’d go for Star and Planet Combinations. If you want to go into deeper technicalities, I’d go for Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars.

Austin Coppock’s 36 Faces

Hopefully we’ll see a 2nd edition of this book in 2021. While it’s not particularly about the fixed stars, it goes into detail about the Decans the Egyptians created (as well as some additional history), which really helped some things click for my own practice.

Aleksander Imsiragic’s book

Pillars of Destiny is a great book, but again VERY DIFFERENT from how Brady’s technical methods of interpreting stars. I found the clarity of how he talks about the stars and his method of interpretation to be a good addition to my practice that seemed to bridge the Hellenistic techniques I already use with the star parans in a more cohesive manner. I do not agree with this assessment that stars are disposited by the signs and the planets that rule them, as in the Neo-platonic schema of divinity the fixed stars lent their images to the zodiac and are above (not below) the planets. However, some of what he offers in terms of simplifying the myths and how they are translated into use for readings.

Star Lore by William Tyler Olcott

A good reference to have on hand, digging specifically into collected star lore. Obviously there is more of a bias towards the Greek and Roman interpretations and myths, as they were most readily available to the author at the time of his writing.

Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen

Update: after having referenced this book for over 5 years, I need to downgrade this to a mediocre resource. There are many claims in here that are a-historical, with no evidence to back them up. I suggest that whatever information you collect from this resource is then back-checked against other resources. This is especially important in regards to non-Egyptian, Greek, or Roman mythologies or asterisms, as often things are made up or poorly translated.

Academia.edu and JSTOR

As my practice has gone further into researching the origins of the stars and their various mythological roots, I have utilized academic papers more and more over time. It's particularly helpful to look for articles on archeoastrology, and in fact there are a few archeoastrology journals out there, but they aren't the easiest to access or find. Places like Academia.edu and JSTOR often have articles from those journals. Utilizing just a free account I've accessed hundreds of papers on star lore, ancient astronomy, and stellar myths across many different cultures and time periods. This has greatly deepened my understanding of the stars and the multitudinous heritage they each contain.

Babylonian Star-Lore by Gavin White

Go deeper than the Egyptians and discover how much of an impact the Babylonian tradition had on EVERY form of astrology, starting from their star lore. For the already practicing traditional astrologer, this book will blow your mind.

Myths from Mesopotamia by Stephanie Dalley

This book is an almost must-have companion to Babylonian Star-Lore, as it gives additional context to the star interpretations of the Babylonians. Remember: interpretation is a reflection of culture and circumstance!

Magical and Witchy Perspectives

You’ll find that the magic practices that emerged from Arabic and Western Mediterranean countries often fly in the face of the classic prognostications that were given to the stars. Which is why I believe it’s helpful to have a copy of the Picatrix and Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy (for the far less affordable but updated translation, check out Eric Purdue's recent work) in your library. Both are dense, but they offer yet another perspective about the power and meaning of the stars that will help balance some of the more dire interpretations when not related to magic. (For example, in astrological magic instead of making you blind the Pleiades actually help you find occult and hidden information and help you have communications with spirits and the dead.) There are also a ton of references to various stars in the Greek Magical Papyri, but not very much context.

Sasha Ravitch's Patreon and Discord Server

Sasha is one of my peers in the fixed star space who has a rich background in non-Meditteranean lore and an art she has deemed as astrolatry and stellar witchcraft (a folk-magic interwoven with celestial spirits and timing). For those who practice folk witchcraft, sabbatic witchcraft, or traditional British witchcraft (especially from the ongoing perspectives of Andrew Chumbley), this community is a treat. Sasha's discord server is especially rich for the more occult-leaning seeker who would like Sasha's personal perspective and ongoing gnosis of the stars, inspired by perspectives outside of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman myths and astrology that tend to be given preference. Though there is definitely a fixed star focus, Sasha particulary is interested in going beyond the visible fixed stars and explores deep space objects through her personal practice of contacting their spirits. Sasha is a poetic seer of the stars, centering her Patreon writing on poetic invocations, rites, and prayers to come into relationship with spirits who are connected to various stars.

Philosophy and Belief

One thing most of these books lack, are the philosophy that underpinned a lot of ancient Meditteranean myths, but especially the Greeks and Romans. Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend and Meaning and Being in Myth by Norman Austin fill in a ton of gaps and prove just how spiritual astrology has always been, and why we need to reconnect to that relationship with the divine.

Advanced Resources

I encourage you to go beyond the Mediterranean into other parts of the world after you get a firm base of technique under your belt.

There are countless other classes and books out there. In fact, I just purchased a nearly 300 page book on just the worldwide star-lore of the Pleiades (which will not go on this list simply because it’s so specific and niche).

There are books on Chinese and Arabic star lore (hard to find, but definitely out there), as well as Aboriginal, Native American, Inca, Mayan, and Central and South American star-lore… And from what I understand soon we’ll also have more books translated from Russian, Eastern European, and Baltic countries at some point in the future to add to our bank of star meanings.

(I’m super hesitant to comment on the British Isles, since most of the indigenous people there did not have written traditions so much of what is being produced at this time is mostly speculation; I’m a stickler for historic accuracy if we’re going to claim something is old.)

Enjoy Your Cosmic Journey!

I hope this helps you start your journey in learning more about the ENTIRE night sky. And if nothing else, pick up a good star gazing app and go look at the stars. We live in a wondrous world, and we’re quick to forget that when we’re inside our little gilded cages staring into a screen all the time.

May the light of the stars guide your studies!