I will always support “fluffy” and “soft” newbie witches who got into witchcraft because of Harry Potter, or The Craft, or fuck, even Sabrina The Teenage Witch, because everyone starts somewhere. If pop culture is what brought them to us then I am glad, because that means more people to this community who will get to learn and grow and expand on this journey.
It’s our job as “experienced” witches to help guide them and support and encourage their exploration of the craft. Not to ridicule or patronize them for how they personally experience or work with magic, but to help them when they need it. But remember, a lot of the path has to do with ones own personal exploration and discovery ~
ALL OF THIS YES I LOVE THIS. If you are a more experienced witch or practitioner and you catch yourself engaging in those sort of behaviors, think back to when you were just starting out. Astrive to be that more experienced witch you wish you had when you were starting out. Realize you started out as a beginner too and people can and are usually willing to learn; try to encourage yourselves to be more humble! Try to encourage yourself to use your knowledge and skills to help others!! Thank you so much for this post!!!
This is pretty straight forward. Donald Trump is once again putting his life above hundreds of thousands of people. Immigrant children in and coming to the U.S. are being separated from their parents and families while their families are being imprisoned. This is a spell specifically to help the children and their families.
What You Need:
Sage(can be replaced with rosemary/incense)
Lavender(Incense is fine)
Pictures of the detention centers/families
Salt
White Candle
A stone you associate as a protection stone(tigers eye, bloodstone, black tourmaline, etc).
A symbol of protection(watchful eye, animal totem(if that’s your culture), Thor’s hammer, etc. something that can be used to protect anyone).
Bonus: If you have a sigil to use that’s great if note Algiz,
Ansuz,
Tiwaz, and Fehu are great protection runes to carve into the candle.
Optional: You can add as much to this spell as you please but keep it around the original intents and purpose.
What To Do:
Hallow the ground your working on(I chose that because I work with Thor you could also cast a circle, bless that four cardinal directions, etc.)
Carve whatever sigil or runes into the white candle and light it.
Clear your mind and close your eyes. Picture a healing, protective, white light surrounding the children and their families in the detention centers and those who are on their way to cross the board/currently attempting.
Send them healing and safe energy.
Light the sage and lavender.
Call upon whatever spirits, deities, or ancestors you work with to help protect the children.
“With a heavy heart, I ask you to protect the immigrant children and ask that no more harm is done to them. I ask that you keep them under your gaze and keep them safe until they are reunited with their families. I ask that their families not be harmed while they are separated and that the children are strong enough to work through the fear.”
Sprinkle salt around all of your protection spell items.
“May the harmful and negative energy directed towards immigrant children and families in the U.S. be cleansed.”
“Black book” is the traditional regional name used in Denmark and Norway, and occasionally found also in the parts of Sweden that used to be part of Denmark. It is part of the regional heritage, and not found any other place. It is only marginally related to classical continental “grimoires”, and has no relationship whatsoever with modern “books of shadows” and similar.
Both the “black books” and the more “grimoire”-like magic books in Norway and Denmark (particularly in Denmark) are sometimes called “cyprianus”, without the contents necessarily being related to the so-called cyprianic magic.
In Sweden, the parallel to the term “black book” is “black arts book”, but this term is a more generic one, as the books more often have individual titles such as “Solomonic Arts”, “The Old Apotechary”, “Sympathetic Sciences” and so on if indeed they are found to have titles at all.
“Black Book” appears in witch trial records outside of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
A short google search to substitute for me going through my library of history books about this topic and writing a term paper regarding returns historical results from Scotland, Venice, Romania, Czech, Russia, Salem, and Iceland.
My google foo seems to fail me today, all I can find is a reference to the folkloric “black book” (the one you got after graduating the equally folkloric “black school” at the University of Wittenberg) from Scotland – nothing on an actual tradition of actual books. Except from Scandinavia and in particular Norway. Could you be so kind and give me the search string you used?
Aye! I cannot help but be super interested in this topic. Hope you two don’t mind :’)
From my own research, I have found references of the following:
Barbara Napier deposed that ‘the devil wess with them in likeness of ane black man … the devil start up in the pulpit, like a mickle blak man, with ane black beard sticking out like ane goat’s beard, clad in ane blak tatie [tattered] gown and ane ewill favoured scull bonnet on his heid; hauing ane black book in his hand’.
From ‘Witch Cult in Western Europe’
Its a quote from one of the witch trials, but I cannot find the source of which trial it was taken from specifically.
Seventh, they pray the devil to strike them out of the book of life, and to inscribe them in the book of death. So we can read written in a black book the names of the witches of Avignon.
Compendium Maleficarum, The Montague Summers Edition
Supposedly there is also a famous lost “black book” that Nigel Jackson based one of his books from, but I can’t really find a source for that. (I believe its talked about in this interview?)
Book of Shadows is a term coined by Gerald Gardner, it’s newer term for an older concept. A Wiccan coven or traditions book of shadows contains liturgy for rituals, spells, and songs as well as any of the groups history. The personal book of shadows is much the same, but also may include personal magical diary material as well. Older terms for the same are Black Book and Grimoire. Some family traditions use common place books, recipe books, psalters, and herbal notes in their heritage as books of shadows, even if they weren’t originally called that. Feel free to use any term that suits you. In my opinion they are all reasonable terms even if they have different ages of use.
A particularly robust motif in the lore of witchcraft is the importance of the grimoire,or magic book, an essential tool for occultists to cast spells. Evidence presented in witchcraft trials regularly mentioned two such volumes: One was a “large black book” owned by the devil or by the head of the witches’ coven, in which the names of witches were signed, often in blood. Another was a “Black Bible” or “Devil’s Missal,” from which the devil or his servants read during their rituals.
Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular CultureBill Ellis
This one doesn’t /really/ specify where the term ‘black book’ comes from, but it also references the black bibles we were talking about earlier. Perhaps some of this comes from their rise to popularity? Though, I could see folks just tacking on “black” to anything deemed diabolic or not Christian enough. The Church liked to do that a lot back in the day.
In my research, I also found something called the Black Book of Taymouth, but couldn’t find a lot about it.
“volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”
You can also donate to them. However, they are a multi-issue project and its hard to say if your donation will go directly to the issue of parents and children being separated.
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families.
The Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee is another El Paso based program building the Fronterizo Fianza Fund, a community bond fund used to help immigrants with the process of coming up with the bond amount and in going through the bond process. It does not have a 501( c ) (3) status at the time and is a grassroots organization if you wanna support that! You can donate or join them. They visit detained immigrants, document abuses, translate documents, and organize demonstrations
Contact Your Legislator:
For individuals in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, this website has a list of your representatives you can call to demand they take action.
This is a list of all U.S. representatives across the U.S.
The ACLU also has a pagethat will connect you to a legislator and will even give you a script if you’re comfortable calling.
Report The U.S. to the UNHRCfor misconduct against immigrants after Trump voluntarily withdrew the U.S. from the Human Right’s Council. Our country deserves to be investigated.
Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
fair--y backup 