The Hebrew transliteration of Abrahadabra. The magickal formula of the Aeon of Horus. The word of the Great Work accomplished. The re-spelling of abracadabra by Aleister Crowley, the Great Beast 666, Master Therion, Perdurabo, Baphomet, etc.
Two gestures, the Mano Fico and the Mano Cornuto, used in Italy against the Evil Eye, c.1914.
Apotropaic Charms Against the Evil Eye
The Mano Cornuto is an Italian amulet of ancient origin. Examples have been found from the Roman era, and it was also used by the Etruscans. Mano means “hand” and Corno means “horn.” The charm represents a gesture in which the index and little fingers are extended while the middle and ring fingers are curled into the palm. Among some people this is the sign of a man who has been slighted, cheated on, or betrayed by a lover; but it is also widely used as a protective gesture against impotency.
Another method of the same origin for warding the Evil Eye is the Mano Fico, or Figa, meaning “fig.” It represents a hand gesture in which the thumb is thrust between the curled index and middle fingers, imitating heterosexual intercourse. The logic here was that since the Evil Eye worked by drying up the generative fluids, a gesture of the sexual act could counteract it.
Both hand charms could be made as an apotropaic gesture or worn as an amulet, usually made of silver, though older Neapolitan Mano charms were also carved of Blood Coral. The Neapolitan custom of making such charms from silver, which is sacred to the Moon goddess Luna, and Blood Coral, sacred to the sea goddess Venus, hints at the cultural survival of a link between the horned animal head gesture and the vulva gesture of the Mano Fico in ancient Roman goddess worship, and in reference to their male, horn-bearing consort, modernly equated with the Devil or Horned God.
LaVeyan Satanism is an atheistic form of Satanism centered around the symbol of “Satan” utilized to represent pride, passion, rebellion, independence, etc., i.e. man’s carnal desires. It was founded by Anton Szandor LaVey in 1966, making it a very new religion, in the grand scheme of religious history. It was founded in San Francisco, which is also where the Church of Satan is headquartered. Its sacred text, if you will, is The Satanic Bible, also written by LaVey and published in 1966.
Anton LaVey was an occultist, and encouraged the use of magic to aid one’s own selfish ends. In fact, the seventh of The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth says that one must “acknowledge the power of magic if [they] have employed it successfully to obtain [their] desires. If [they] deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, [they] will lose all [they] have obtained”. In saying this, LaVey does not explicitly require a belief in magic to be held to be a LaVeyan Satanist, but many are. I am not one of them.
LaVey often emphasized that in his own tradition, he practiced two forms of Satanic rites, though neither of these were acts of religion. “Rituals” are intended to beget change; three types have been described by him: sexual rituals intended to attract a desired mate, compassionate rituals intended to help people (including oneself), and destructive rituals seeking to harm another. These were often considered to be magical acts meant to be carried out alone. “Ceremonies” are held to celebrate a specific occasion. LaVey’s entire teachings on rites and practices are enclosed within The Satanic Rituals, another book he authored intended to act as a companion to The Satanic Bible.
I hope I’ve been able to provide a small introduction to the religion, and that any confusion has been cleared up!
The conscious, subconscious, and unconscious are different levels of awareness of the mind. Each one of these levels has their own specific job as it relates to the rest of the mind, and they all work together in order to facilitate the connection of awareness between specific information that is taken in through events.
Conscious mind:
The conscious mind is the mind that we are aware of. It is our focal point of awareness that are mind uses to perceive our surroundings, and our present thoughts. The conscious mind does not run the show, and is just a perceiver of the events that are happening, and because of this the conscious mind will you receive most of its information when needed from the subconscious mind. This is also the home of the ego, which chooses the content in which the consciousness will interact with, and will act as a gatekeeper for information, and experience. The ego also chooses what gets repressed and sent to the unconscious mind.
Subconscious mind:
The subconscious mind also sometimes known as the preconscious mind is the mind that we are semi aware of. It runs in the background so we are not completely focused on it, and we can choose to recall information from it in order to bring that information into our present consciousness. It is the place where we store, and receive data for later. Things such as our memories, beliefs, values, mood, emotions, behaviors, and our perceptions that we are not focusing upon stay within our subconscious mind, unless we focus upon it with our consciousness. The subconscious mind is in direct connection with the unconscious.
Unconscious mind:
The unconscious mind also sometimes known as the personal unconscious is the mind that we are not aware of. The unconscious is the deepest part of the personal mind. It is the place that communicates with us in our dreams. The unconscious mind can reluctantly share information to the subconscious mind, so that the conscious mind can receive it though this will only happen in certain circumstances such as dreams, or when these understandings are triggered by certain events. The unconscious mind can also be brought up through specific types of methods such as meditation, and hypnosis, and it is these understandings that give birth to shadow work. The unconscious will store unacceptable, or unpleasant things that we have repressed that causes us pain anxiety, and conflict things like hidden feelings memories thoughts, and desires, which is usually known as the shadow. other things that have just been forgotten, or were not important enough to be remembered also end up in the unconscious mind. A lot of the understandings that are stored here are the fundamental roots of your understandings, beliefs, and values and your justification for believing in such things, because of this your subconscious is always running the show from the background even when you don’t know it.
“The common Greek word for ‘magician’ in Jesus’ time was goes (plural goetes). […] Here goetia (what goetes do) is one special technique like others named, a recognized and legitimate function. It seems to have been a sort of Greek shamanism, a form of mourning for the dead in which the goetes became ecstatic and were thought to accompany the dead on their journey to the underworld.” (Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician. P. 70)
Etymological roots:
Goös: “a highly emotional funeral lament” performed by Greek women in antiquity. The opposite of the Threnos, an emotionally controlled form of lamentation.
“Goös, in contrast, was spontaneous and emotionally powerful — sometimes excessively so. It is connected primarily with women, especially women who were related to the deceased. The songs these women sang emphasized their pain as survivors, and sometimes reproached the deceased for having left his family unprotected. In the Iliad , for example, Andromache describes to the dead Hector how Astyanax will have to beg for food at the tables of other men. Somewhat later, gooi began to carry the additional purpose of rousing the listeners to revenge; the singers did this by focusing not only on their own pain but also on the injustice of the death suffered by the deceased. Thus, the Chorus of lamenting women in the Choephoroi urges the listening Orestes to avenge his father’s death. Goös , in other words, became a means of eliciting help from the living, as well as a medium for complaining to the dead.”
[…]
“Rousing the living to action by complaining to the dead is but a step away from asking the dead themselves to bring help as well. Once the idea that the dead could be made to return had been introduced to Greek culture, it would have been natural to include such a request as part of a goös.”
(Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead. P. 101)
Goao: “to lament, sing wildly, cast a spell.”
“The second phenomenon with which goetes regularly were connected was singing and more broadly music of all kinds. The Suda and Cosmas defined goeteia as an act of “calling upon” (epiklesis) the dead; earlier sources repeatedly connected goeteia with the epoide, or chanted song. The Dactyls were credited both with the invention of various forms of music and with the composition of epoidai. Their student Orpheus, of course, was the most famous singer of all – by classical times we find him using his lyre and his voice to persuade the gods of the dead to release the soul of his wife, and by Varro’s day he was known as the author of a book called the Lyre, which taught others how to invoke souls through music as well. The crediting of such a book to Orpheus verifies that in ancient eyes what Orpheus did with his music was not really different from the way a goes used epoidai or the incantations written on curse tablets to call up a soul, even if Orpheus and the goes desired the souls they invoked for very different reasons. Broadly, all of these connections between invocation of souls and song are part of a belief in the ability of all kinds of sound to enchant the individual soul.
But we need not go so far afield in proving the importance of this association between goeteia and song, for it is attested by the very term itself. As already noted, goes and its cognates are built from the same root as the older words goös and goao. This makes sense: the goes, like the lamenter, wishes to communicate with the realm of the dead…” (Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead. P. 111-112)
There is precisely one group of spirits that are “Goetic”. Mentioned in the last quote, the Dactyls were divided into two types by the Logographer Pherecydes of Leros*: those of the Left Hand, who are Goetes and Binders, and those of the Right Hand, who are Analuontes and Releasers (from Binding), and who are credited with teaching Orpheus the epoidai (binding incantations). There’s a lot of confusion about how often the Dactyls/Kouretes/Corybantes overlap. Nonetheless, the groups are quite often associated with mastery of binding spells (which were used on both humans and the dead), and of teaching humans how to perform them (or at least, teaching Orpheus how to perform them):
“As daimons whether wholly or half divine the Kouretes have all manner of magical capacities. These capacities are by Strabo rather implied than expressly stated and are especially noticeable in their Phrygian equivalents, Korybantes. The Korybantes bind and release men from spells, they induce madness and heal it. The chorus asks the love-sick Phaedra:
Is this some Spirit, O child of man? Doth Hecat hold thee perchance, or Pan? Doth She of the Mountains work her ban, Or the dread Corybantes bind thee?” (E. J. Harrison, Themis. P. 26)
Beyond this the words Goetia, Goes, etc., all refer to acts and individuals who performed them, not the spirits. It is not the spirits who are Goetic, it is the magician/sorcerer.
If you use the phrase Goetic Demon, even if you’ve seen a thousand clueless “ceremonial magicians” use it, you are most likely misapplying the descriptor. Outside the Dactyls/Kouretes as masters of enchantment and binding and as tutelary functionaries of Goetia, there are no other Goetic spirits. The application of the word Goetia to medieval books of magic stems from its association with spirit conjuration, not as a descriptor of the spirits themselves.
“The most sinister aspect of this involvement with the dead was the ability to summon such spirits for purposes other than divination. Like necromantic divination this is a natural consequence of the role of guide of souls. However it also relates very closely to the ability to deal with hostile ghosts of various kinds. The arts of exorcism and evocation are intimately related. It is from this aspect of its past that goetia is associated with demonic evocation. Distinctions between underworld demons and the angry dead have always been vague. Additionally, expertise in rites concerning the dead necessarily involves the gods and guardians of the Underworld. Consequently, in various guises, raising spirits has been associated with goetia for much of its history.” (Jake Stratton-Kent, What is Goetia?)
Meanwhile, applying the word Goetia to the conjuration of demons from Solomonic texts is also a type of limitation. We can find spirits that intersect with the practice well outside those texts, and the catalog of spirits overlaps with several texts. Spirits found in the Lemegeton’s book entitled Goetia are also found in Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, CLM849 (The Munich Necromancer’s Handbook), The Grimorium Verum, The Dragon texts (Black Dragon, Red Dragon), and so on. Additionally, you also practicing Goetia if you conjure a number of spirits outside those texts – such as the Fairy Sibylia, who does not appear in ‘Solomonic’ texts (but rather Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft).
* EDIT: Initially I wrote “heroic age Logographer,” which I meant to mean “Logographer of heroic age materials.” In retrospect, not only did it make it sound like Pherecydes of Leros (450s BCE) lived in the heroic age, which was wrong, but the phrase didn’t matter – most Logographers discussed heroic age materials.
In which theheadlesshashasheen layeth down the good shit for you lucky, lucky tumblrites.
🔹 Chamomile (helps combat insomnia, a common symptom of depression) 🔹 Green (contains an amino acid known as theanine which is known to fight depression) 🔹 St John’s Wort (contains compounds known as hypericin and hyperforin, which may affect activity of the brain’s serotonin system) 🔹 Lemon Balm (works as a mild sedative and can ease anxiety and depression) 🔹 Ginger Root (helps to increase important neurotransmitters than can regulate your mood) 🔹 Lavender (research shows that lavender can help combat depression, and has been said to rival antidepressants) 🔹 Peppermint (the menthol in peppermint leaves helps calm mood and aides sleep)
💎
CRYSTALS
💎
🔹 Smoky Quartz (helps elevate moods, overcome negative emotions, and relieves depression) 🔹 Rose Quartz (is a known healer and can help replace negative feelings with love and compassion) 🔹 Amethyst (combats stress and releases a relaxed energy) 🔹 Citrine (emits a sunny, optimistic energy which can aide in combating depression and anxiety) 🔹 Angel Aura Quartz (is known to help with mental illness, and it’s energy can help process emotional disturbances, grief, or trauma)
🕯️
INCENSE
🕯️
🔹 Lavender (reduces stress physically and mentally, and promotes deep sleep) 🔹 Jasmine (helps with alertness, evokes an uplifting energy, and is believed to ease symptoms of depression) 🔹 Ylang Ylang (has a calming affect that elevates mood and is known to help with physical and mental symptoms of anxiety and depression) 🔹 Lemongrass (promotes emotional balance, and uplifts emotional weight) 🔹 Sandalwood (encourages calmness, serenity, and feelings of well being)
🔹 Spend time in the sun, and in nature. Even if you only go and sit in your backyard, it will help, and make you feel a bit better 🔹 Drink water! LOTS OF WATER! Want an extra boost? Make a bunch of sun water and drink it on exceptionally low days to help with your energy and mood levels. 🔹 Ground yourself every night before bed to rid yourself of negative energies 🔹 Turn your sadness into creativity! Work on pages of your grimoire or book of shadows. Do some witchy DIY’s! Set up a new altar! Make some sigils! Being productive and creative are so helpful when you’re feeling melancholic. 🔹 Have some spoonie witch tips for low energy days! 🔹 Garden. Spending time in nature and creating something within the earth is not only rewarding, but gardening is actually a de-stressing activity and can soothe your mood. PLUS think of all the herbs you could grow to help with your craft! 🔹 Talk to someone. Other witches. Friends. A professional. A hotline. Anyone who is willing to listen. Put that energy out there and it will make a world of difference, I promise. 🔹 Let yourself have at least ONE self-care day a week. It doesn’t matter what it entails, as long as you’re taking that time for YOURSELF, magickal or not.
EDIT: Because I’m awful and forgot how vast Tumblr is, and how so many different people, in different situations, use Tumblr, I didn’t mention some very crucial points:
1) DON’T substitute herbs for medication or treatment, unless you’ve consulted a medical professional. 2) DON’T take an herbal supplement WITH your medication unless you have consulted with your doctor first. 3) Witchcraft should NOT be your “go to” when it comes to medical help. Witchcraft is a tool, and although it is helpful, it can also be harmful if you don’t take the proper precautions (thorough research, getting advice from a professional, etc). Keep practicing, keep making magick, but be safe! 4) Lastly, if you need help, physically or emotionally, please consider contacting a professional instead of taking it upon yourself. You’re wonderful and intelligent and a powerful witch, but you aren’t invincible. So, please take care of yourself, talk to a professional, even if it may not seem like the most desirable approach.
And FINALLY, thank you SO MUCH to all of the wonderful witches who contributed on this post. Without their input I may never have remembered to acknowledge that this post is one that NEEDS warnings. So, thank you honey bees, I really appreciate it!
So, today we’re going to talk about a slightly more obscure tool: the witch’s ladder. There’s some debate as to whether or not this was a commonly used tool in older European traditions of witchcraft. In the late 1870’s a witch’s ladder, along with a collection of brooms, was found in the attic of a recently deceased woman in Somerset, sparking suspicions of witchcraft. Unfortunately, it’s not actually known whether or not this object was really used in witchcraft or how widespread the use may have been if it was. More on the history of these tools can be found here.
Now, what is a witch’s ladder? It’s a type of knot talisman made by inserting small objects into a length of cord, traditionally rooster feathers and sometimes small bones were used but you can use locks of hair, teeth, beads, sticks, leaves, seashells or pretty much anything that works for your practice.
Originally, it’s thought that they were used to curse but their uses in modern practices are endless. I’ll be making one to protect my house and create easier communication with the Other Realms.
How to Make a Witches Ladder
Ok, to start us off we need a few supplies. There are three main things that I’m using.
First is the cord, feel free to use whatever material you like. When I’m doing work like this I prefer to use regular old kitchen twine. It’s sturdy and not overly processed. You could use yarn, thread, rope, sinew or ribbon as well though.
The second thing that I’ll be using is a couple of small bones, I’m using six because I like working with multiples of three.
Finally, the feathers. These are brown mourning dove feathers; I’m using these as opposed to another type of feather because they’re good for communicating with Spirit and for fostering awareness.
I would like to mention here that while handy in the craft, collecting bones and feathers that you find can be illegal.Most birds are protected species and regardless of whether you found the feathers or ripped them off of the bird yourself, possessing them is illegal. Be sure to check the laws in your area. This problem can usually be solved by writing a letter to the appropriate wildlife officials asking for permission to pick up specific types of bird feathers for a collection. Once written permission is obtained it only has to be kept with the feathers to avoid any ramifications. Of course, if you’re not going to be waving about rare bird feathers in the town square this is probably unnecessary.
As I said, you can replace bones or feathers with whatever you like. Use Barbie arms if that’s what floats your boat. I usually use nine items in mine and the traditional number would be thirteen but feel free to adjust this to fit your needs.
Another optional material would be a metal ring, you can tie the ladder to this and use that to hang it from a hook on the ceiling or something if you like. I’ll just be using a thumbtack.
As always prep yourself and your workspace however you prefer. Cast a circle, take a ritual bath, light some incense, maybe put on some music. Consecrate your supplies and get to work.
The creation of a witch’s ladder is surprisingly simple and quick. Take your cord and cut three equal lengths. How long you make it is up to you, for example, I like each length to be from the fingertips of my left hand to my heart in length. Tie the ends together, if you are using a metal ring, tie it to the ring; otherwise just an overhand knot on the end does the trick.
Start braiding, for this one I used your typical three-strand braid but you could add and subtract cords and use rope braids, fishtail braids or five strand braids as well. As you braid begin adding in your objects. I don’t do anything special, I just keep braiding as usual while adding my feathers and stuff in between two strands. Here’s a close-up of my ladder partially finished.
I spread mine out semi-evenly along the length of the cord, if you’re a stickler about getting things even then make sure you remember that you’ll lose about a third of the cord length in the process of braiding.
As you add each item to the ladder spend a few moments to state your intention or meditate on the purpose of your spell. I kind of just spend the entire time I’m making the ladder talking to it and telling it what I would like of it. You could also use the traditional nine knot spell if incantations are your thing. I find them too constricting for my practice but for those of you who prefer more ritualized working here it is
“By knot of one, the spell is begun
By knot of two, it cometh true
By knot of three, so mote it be
By knot of four, the open door
By knot of five, it comes alive
By knot of six, the spell is fixed
By knot of seven, it has the power of heaven
By knot of eight, the open gate
By knot of nine, it is mine”
After all of your items are in place you need to finish your cord. You can just tie a knot in it and either trim the excess cord or let it hang there, or you can add something to the end as a sort of weight, bells are a common choice. Feel free to let it charge in the light of the moon or sun if you like.
Once it’s completely done take it and hang it somewhere, I like to have them on my porch but hanging it in your room or kitchen works as well. If the spell is more malicious I’d suggest hiding it away somewhere close to your target instead of hanging it.
Here’s my finished ladder, hanging out on my porch.
A few ideas for uses of these lovely tools:
Warding magic – Use to create a “Do Not Enter” sign for unfriendly energies. The ladder conveys the meaning that those who would harm are unwelcome.
Attraction magic – Use it to attract people, familiars, ideas, mindsets, jobs, circumstances, luck, etc. into your life
Binding the thirteen moons of the year – This is a method used to harness the power of the thirteen full moons of the year, allowing you to perform weather magic and nature magic more easily and opening the doorway to the Other Realms.
Traveling – Ladders can be used as a gate into the Other Realms. An actual “ladder” for your spirit to climb up into various planes
Natural magic – You can use items related to the branch of nature that you work with. For me it’s trees but perhaps you work with the ocean, mountains, forests, animals, insects, and so on.
Wish magic – You can use rolled up slips of paper or pressed leaves and make a ladder with them, writing your wish on each one. As the ladder is slowly destroyed by the elements, your wish comes true.
Divination – I’ll need to make a full post about this if anyone is interested, it’s a tad complicated
Worship – You could use a witches ladder as an offering to a deity, perhaps as a nine day devotional where you tie in an offering every day and ending with hanging it on the last day
Curses – and of course, witches ladders can be used to curse.
As usual, if anyone has any questions or would like me to make a follow up post on anything I’ve mentioned here, let me know!
The Key of Solomon. I’ve heard a lot of good things from several ceremonial magicians, including @thedesertgod , that the edition to go for is Skinner’s. He’s compiled, edited, and added scholastic commentary to The Veritable Key of Solomon, as well as The Magician’s Tables. Joseph Peterson, also recommended, has worked on The Lesser Key of Solomonand the Clavicula Solomonis (or Key of Solomon). I probably would read it in its original Latin, if you have the means.
Agrippa, Cornelius (false attribution). The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy. 1655. Stephen Skinner also worked on an edition of this book. Unlike the actual Agrippa’s original three books, this volume does not hold much in the way of theory but offers plenty of practical instruction.
Chamberlain, Richard. Lithobolia. 1682. One family’s account of witchcraft perpetuated by the fetch of a neighbor.
Culpepper, Nicholas. Complete Herbal. 1653. It provides a comprehensive description of the herbs, along with their medicinal uses and instructions on preparing them to treat illnesses.
Culpepper, Nicholas. The English Physician. 1652. The first medical guide published in the American colonies (apparently), it is intended for the average person.
Defoe, Daniel (assumed). A Compleat System of Magick; or, The History of the Black-Art. 1727. As a skeptic, like Reginald Scot, this anonymous author (who we’re pretty sure is Defoe) provides much information on the work of witches, conjurors, and cunning-folk.
Magnus, Albertus (false attribution). The Book of Secrets. “Provides a portrayal of the magical culture that predominated in the 16th century. This work includes secrets which are divided into five distinct parts: Of the Virtues of Herbs, Of the Virtues of Stones, Of the Virtues of Beasts, Of the Planets, and The Marvels of the World.”
Mather, Cotton. Memorable Providences. 1698. Having fanned the flames of the Salem hysteria, this book discusses several witchcraft cases in New England before the Trials arose.
Mather, Increase. Cases of Conscience. 1693. Intended to vindicate the Mathers’ involvement in Salem, it was intended to prove that witches and devils could assume the shape of an innocent person.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. 1584. By attempting to debunk witchcraft as a hoax, it managed to record a good cross-section of their formulae.
“By the thirteenth century … clerical authorities began to take magic, and magicians, far more seriously. One main factor behind this shift was the rise of various types of learned magic, including astronomy, alchemy, and spiritual and demonic magic, among the educated elites of western Europe. Grounded in Arab, Greek, and Jewish texts, such magic became the focus of much interest among the scholars and intellectuals of Europe. While some were fascinated, many others greatly feared this new learning. The church remained convinced that demonic power lay hidden at the root of even apparently innocent magical practices. Even worse, the darkest aspect of magic, involving explicit demonic invocation, often proved the most seductive to young scholars, giving rise to what one expert has termed a “clerical underworld” of “necromancy,” as such learned demonic magic was generally termed.”
— Michael D. Bailey, “From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages” in Speculum (2001) 76(4):960-990
Occult Aspects 